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SHORT STUDIES 



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BY 



CHAS. S. ROBINSON D.D. 

Pastoe of Fiest Peesbyteeian Chuech Beooklyn N. T. 





/ ^_ NEW YOEK 
WYNKOOP & SHERWOOD 

IS Beekman St. 
1888 



il^^" 



^* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186T, 

By WYNKOOP & SHEEWOOD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



Bradstreet PRESa 



TO 



GEORGE C. RIPLEY, HENRY IDE, 

ROBERT C. OGDEX, ANDREW A. SMITH, 

ALEXANDER M. EARLE, 



$up6rjni6nd8nt$» 



THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY LN'SCEIBED. 



"There are my feilow-'workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a 
comfort unto rae.'"—ColQssians, iv 11. 



sSS 



PEEFAOE. 




HE chapters of this unpretending volume 
were originally presented, each in turn, in 
a series of familiar addi^esses from the pulpit at a 
Sabbath afternoon service. 

I have noticed quite intelligently the fact that 
oftentimes the lines of thoua^ht cross each other, 
and an admonition, an inference, or an exposition, 
has been repeated. This was most natural in the 
outset ; and really I cannot see any valid reason for 
making a change now. I would rather have the 
singleness of impression from each theme, than the 
mere satisfaction of more finished work 

The usefulness I hope these sketches and outlines 
of Scriptural truth will serve is very simple. Per- 



vi PREFACE. 

liaps. they will prompt some one who is wearj^, 
encourage some one who is tried; perhaps they 
will be suggestive to superintendents in prejoaring 
for public seiwices ; perhaps they will prove 
acceptable gifLs for older teachers to present to 
younger. 

And if they fail in all these ends, still it is 
a kind of comfort to myself — I own it — that I 
have made an honest, humble, prayerful effort 
to be of some assistance to a class of Christian 

workers whom I honor vrith my whole heart. 

•- 
74 PiERREPONT Street, Brooklyn, JST. Y., ) 
December 1, 1867. ) 




TaMe of Contents. 



PAGE 

I. A Child's Eescue, . . ... . . . l 

II. The Model Teacher, .'.... . 16 

III. The :\Iodel Pupil, 27 

lY. ^ORDS TO THE Y^EARY 44 

Y. Life for Life, . . . . . . .60 

YI. MAXiFESTixa Truth, 73 

YII. A Child-like Spirit, 86 

YIII. GtOd's Arrows, -103 

IX. Home Heathen, 116 

X. DRAWIXa LiGHTXIXG, 135 

XI. IXTELLIGEXT StUDY, 150 

XII. OxLY Believe. 163 

XIII. The Teacher Taught, . . . . . .182 

XIY. DiYisiox OF Labor, 199 

XY. A Bible-class Lessox, 219 




SHORT STUDIES 



Foa 



SUI^DAY-SOHOOL TeACHEES. 



I. 



A tkKi(b';5 Rescue. 




^'•And she called Ms name 3loses; and she said, because tdr&vo Mm out 
of the icater.'''' — Exodus ii. 10. 

BOUT four thousand years ngo a little boy 
was saved from drowning in the Nile river. 
That incident forms the theme of this present 
discourse. 

^^Life," says Jean Paul, "should in every shape 
be precious to us; for the same reason that the 
Turks carefully collect each scrap of paper which 
comes in their way, because the naine of God may 
be written upon it." If it were not for this name 
of God, possible to be written upon every human 

1 



2 A CHILD'S EES CUR 

heart, I would no more attempt to interest you in 
the recital of that Hebrew babe's rescue, than I 
would in the bursting of one of the myriad bubbles 
which broke against the side of the bulrush vessel 
he lay in. 

Once, when our Saviour wanted to instruct his 
disciples in primary doctrine, he took a little. child, 
and set him in the midst of them. If Pharaoh's 
daughter will but lend to our imagination for an 
hour the ark she discovered, we will place it here 
in full view, and make it our preacher. Our lesson 
shall be concerning the saving of children. 

I. Let me, in the first place, recall to your minds 
the perils which surrounded the life which was 
saved on that memorable occasion. 

1. It was the life of an infant child. Strange 
indeed does it seem, to think that Moses, the ven- 
erable lawgiver of the chosen people, once was a 
feeble babe, weak and wailing as ever was a nurs- 
ling of three months in its mother's arms. Yet 
this was he, lying there in the reeds by the river 
side. • Look at him a moment ! Surely, he needs 
not to be killed in order to die. Infancy alone will 
extinguish that insignificant glimmer of existence 



A CHILD'S RESCUE, 3 

Just leave him where he is a little longer, and you 
will never hear of his going up into Mount Nebo. 
One rush of the waves through a crevice, and the 
march in the wilderness will never be made. One 
quick gasp, as the relentless current hurries him 
under, and the Bible will be less by a Pentateuch. 

2. It was the life of a proscribed child. His 
nation was in .bondage. His mother was a slave. 
He was "one of the Hebrew's children." He be- 
came instantly, therefore, an outlaw. All Egypt 
was on the alert for his life. He was a tremendous 
enemy of the government that was building the 
pyramids! There was no room in the world for 
male Hebrew children when Moses was bom. 
Aaron, his brother, got in before the door was 
shut. Beautifal maidens were those, doubtless, in 
attendance upon Egypt's princess; but between 
them and this foundling, socially, there was forever- 
more a great gulf fixed. 

3. It was the life of an outcast child. He had no 
friends. His mother had already hidden him till 
concealment was dangerous. It must have been a 
hard thing for her now to put him oat on the river. 
Sorrowfal hours were those she and little Miriam 



4: , A CHILD'S RESCUE. 

had, weaving the rushes. But this was the best 
they could do for him. He was as much adrift on 
the world as he well could be ; and that at an age 
conceded to be unusually early. Feeble fight 
would he be likely to make with the hard fortunes 
that beset him. 

You pity him : so do I, with all my heart. But 
I will tell you what you may pity to |)etter purpose. 
There are scores of sons and daughters of misery, 
drifting out upon a stream of vice, which the Nile, 
with all its murkiness and its monsters, can not 
parallel for peril ; a river of depraved humanity, 
hurrying on before it everything good and promis- 
ing into the dark destiny behind the cloud. I 
think it high time more was doing in our Christian 
communities for the rescue of children. 

IL Let me tell you now, in the second place, 
who it was that saved that life, so exposed upon 
the margin of the Nile. 

1. Primarily, of course, God. This he has 
claimed for his especial office. "He gathereth 
together the outcasts of Israel." Here was a child, 
orphaned while his parents were living ; homeless, 
when his father's house was within sight ; deserted, 



A CHILD'S RESCUE. 5 

when his own sister kept her eye upon him ; an 
outlaw, when the princess of the realm was coming 
to his relief. Who pnt him in the midst of such 
contradictions? Who set all the extraordinary 
train of helpers m motion ? He it was, into whose 
faithful face the Psalmist looked up as he said, 
" When my father and my mother forsake me, then 
the Lord will take me up." 

2. Instrumentally, however, God made use of 
four agents in this rescue. And it is because all of 
us, in one way or another, can find an example 
among them to imitate in forwardness of zeal, that 
I mention them in turn. 

A helieving mother was the first of them. " By 
faith, Moses when he was bom was hid three 
months of his parents." Prudence and piety were 
joined in the effort made for his relief That trust- 
ful woman religiously committed her child to a 
covenant-keeping God. But she did all that human 
ingenuity could suggest to protect him. She used 
the means within her own reach. Then, with un- 
wavering confidence she tranquilly awaited the issue. 

A wealthy princess was also one of the helpers in 
the rescue. Pharaoh's daughter, coming down to the 



6 A CHILD'S BESCUE, 

water, heard the wailing voice among the rushes. 
When her attendants brought the curious vessel 
ashore, she *^saw the child." The great humanity 
asserted itself in her breast. She felt the sincerest 
sympathy for a creature so forloi;n. It was against 
the law, mind you, for her to pity him. It was 
" resisting the powers " to aid a little fugitive slave 
in those uncivilized times. But through all the 
meshes of conventional exclusion, through all the 
links of legislation, her womanly instinct found its 
unhindered way. And in that exalted moment the 
princess rose to an elevation she never surpassed. 
She planted herself on the rock by the side of the 
Creator, who "hath made of one blood all nations 
of men." No Christian woman, surely, ever does 
herself and her sex the honor that the merest self- 
respect requires, until she is able to free her heart 
from all tramniels of social distinction and caste 
privilege, enough to cheerfully do good to any poor 
child of destitution and prejudice, for whom the 
common Eedeemer has died. 

An intelligent child was likewise one of the parties 
that saved Moses' life. Quite a number of useful 
children are mentioned in the Scripture. A little 



A CHILD'S RESCUE. 7 

lad furnished the loaves and fishes to feed the five 
thousand. A little girl led the Syrian leper to 
Elisha for his cure. A touching spectacle rises 
upon our imagination, when we think of the young 
Miriam, perhaps at the time four or five years old, 
put on guard just out of sight to keep the family 
informed concerning the fate of the ark. How the 
heart of that faithful watcher must have fluttered 
when she saw the royal train approaching the spot ! 
Miriam was undoubtedly a very bright child. She 
appears remarkably well in this story. There is 
ingenuity and great shrewdness in her quick sug- 
gestion of a nurse — a Hebrew nurse — and herself to 
go and make choice of one. What is the reason 
children may not be trained in saving children? 
There is marvelous intelligence in some of them, 
that might be turned to -unmeasured advantage, if 
thej were taught usefulness as patiently as they are 
accomplishments. 

An affectionate teacher was also among the rescuers 
of that infant in the ark. To be sure, this was the 
same woman mentioned before ; but she was now 
discharging a different office. God's blessing 
brought the child back to the bosom it belonged 



8 A CHILD'S RESCUE, 

upon. But after this Jocliebed considered her 
charge as belonging to Pharaoh's daughter. He 
was destined to enter the palace ere long. She had 
it for her duty to prepare him for his eminent mis- 
sion. "We read in the subsequent history that 
Moses was educated in all the learning of the 
Egyptians. But it was the foundation of another 
sort of knowledge that was laid thus early in his 
career. This instructor taught him of God, of 
truth, of equity. And I make a point of this work 
of hers merely in order to say, that the 'mother of 
any child is its fittest teacher, when she can be, and 
when she can not, that will be its best teacher who 
is most like a mother. 

You see now what was intended when I said that 
you can choose your own place among these instiTi- 
ments of rescue. There is a share in the saving of 
children to be given to the youngest and the ma- 
turest, for the pauper's child and the king's daugh- 
ter. Only this much I urge earnestly : the river is 
rising, time hurries, the ark is exposed. 

IIL Let me tell you, in the third place, what 
was the value of that life saved in the ark of bul- 
rushes. 



A CHILL'S RESCUE. 9 

Measured by any standard of earthly estimate, it, 
would not pass for much. Indeed, why wa?? it not 
better for an outcast, like that infant Moses, just to 
slip quietly out from under the eaves of life into 
the grand Hereafter at once, and die peacefully into 
a decenter existence than this ? 

Such a question suggests folly. Drowning is the 
poorest of all purposes to put a child to. The res- 
cue proves the finest part of the story. One thing is 
certain, it has been handed down reverently through 
forty centuries. The child was worth something, 
or inspiration would not have been so carefully 
invoked in its favor. 

1. It was worth something for its beauty, Ste- 
phen, in the Acts, says Moses was *' exceedingly 
fair;" the Greek is, "fair to God," or divinely, ce- 
lestially fan\ There is in the countenance of a 
child wonderful power to move any man of sensi- 
bility. But the loveliness of infancy becomes de- 
formed very soon in outcast children. It is a fearful 
sight to look upon a little, old, wise child ; an infant 
of years, with maturity thrust upon him before his 
voice changes; a wiry, shrewd politician of the 
streets and alleys ; keen and cunning after food and 

1* 



10 A CHILD'S RESCUE. 

raiment as a wolf, and worse off than a wolf in tiiat 
he has to procure raiment. Believe me, even the 
artless beauty of a child is worth saving. It will 
be one of the dearest sights in heaven, the sweet 
faces of children. Angels are waiting to welcome 
them. They never had any. They were never chil- 
dren themselves. They are all of the same age. 
They were all created at the same time. They 
never marry nor are given in marriage. Half the 
human race die in infancy, and are saved. Oh, it 
is best to keep something even here to remind us 
of the joys of the redeemed ! 

2. It was worth something for its gifts. At this 
time, of course, Moses was the merest infant. No- 
body believes the foolish stories which the Eabbins 
tell of his early precocity, or his boyish exploits. 
But we know from the disclosure of after history, 
that there were enfolded in his undeveloped intellect 
princely possibilities of eminence in attainment 
and exercise. How little we know about this ques- 
tion of development ! Look at your own hand ; it 
is as good a hand as Michael Angelo's. "Why can 
not it paint on canvas, or carve in stone ? It is un- 
taught and unpracticed ; but the skill is in it some- 



A CHILD'S RESCUE. H 

where. So of your memory. So of jour imngina- 
tion. How small a moiety of any man's nature is 
working at its utmost power. Look out now upon 
these undisciplined multitudes. A shrewd manu- 
facturer, up among the mountains, discovered a 
torrent that was wasting itself in irregular leaps 
from rock to rock ; he gave it a flume to run into, 
and it rolled on far better for itself, and turned a 
tremendous wheel for him. Whv does not some 
keen-sighted statesman or philanthropist see how 
much waste of power there is in this frantic strug- 
gle for life which the children of want are making ? 
3. It was worth something for its preciousness. 
When I look in upon the ark where Moses lies, I 
can not help thinking of the trustfal woman that 
loved him enough to give him up to the risk of the 
waters. And I never stand before a great audience 
of children without saying to myself, somebody 
loves them. Somebody thinks that each one in 
turn is the best one of them all. There never was 
a little child, hardly, in the world that did not have, 
for at least one moment, a look of unutterable ten- 
derness from the woman whose heart leaped up 
when she knew it was her own. Just for com^mon 



12 A CHILD'S RESCUE. 

humanity's sake, then, it is worth the saving. I 
honor that matron who leaned over the dying sol- 
dier, and whispered, "Let me kiss him for his 
mother !" Biit beyond this, stands the great love 
of the Saviour for children. "Take heed that ye 
despise not one of these little ones." They are im- 
measurably precious to him. No creature in the 
universe, no matter how vicious, no matter how 
deserted, no matter how repulsive, is so far beyond 
the pale of charity as to be rejected for an outcast, 
just so long as there is room enough on his fore- 
head for grace to write the name of the Lamb ! 

4. It was worth something for its purpose. In 
every acorn there is an oak. That feeble child, 
lying desolately in the ark, was mightier than the^ 
sun rolling on its meridian way overhead ; for the 
All-wise had given him a work to do under the 
plan of redemption. Jochebed little knew what 
history she was weaving when she plaited the bul- 
rushes together. That tiny hand was one day to 
wield the rod of Omnipotence' over the Eed Sea 
divided, the rock riven, and Amalek routed. Let 
no man despise children. God sometimes charges 
even the youngest life with a purpose so trans- 



A CHILD'S BESCUE. 13 

cendent that the angels earnestly desire to look 
into it. 

5. It was worth something for its destiny. You 
look at that child as it is borne iip the bank in the 
arms of its mother. The narrative of the rescue is 
ended. Pharaoh's daughter has a fresh adventure 
to relate in the palace, to cause a wonderment for a 
morning. Then the recollection grows dim, and 
that Life so strangely saved seems to have vanished 
from history. Forty years pass by ; and anon it 
reappears in the palace. There it is tempted ; then 
it goes forth into desert experiences, and is lost in 
the distance. Forty more years pass by ; and again 
you behold its return. A more splendid life the 
world never saw. At the head of a mighty host, 
its marvelous march has begun toward the prom- 
ised land. Miracles drop from the extended hand. 
-Wisdom untold is issuing from the lips inspired. 
Forty years more pass by ; and now at last you see 
that life, with natural force unabated, and eye not 
yet grown dim, going bravely up into Mount Nebo 
to die. Then you have reason to believe it is fairly 
ended. But fifteen hundred years more pass by ; 
and once more you suddenly discover that life on 



14 A CHILD'S RESCUE. 

the summit of another mountain, in the compan* 
ionship of Immanuel himself, grand in all the radi- 
ance of glory, with Elijah and with God ! From 
that Tabor- top of wonderful transfiguration it passes 
back to its rest, to live and reign forever. When 
vou think of that rescued child, think of all this 
immortal destiny included. Even Miriam, who 
sang with her timbrel by the Red Sea, is living yet ; 
and on the sea of glass will yet sing with her harp^ 
the song of Moses and the Lamb. 

This, then, is the lesson we learn to-day. The 
salvation of a child — what is it ? It seems so little, 
but, ah, it is so much ! Let me give you just three 
thoughts to close with. 

1. Learn the power of the great common hu- 
manity. What Pharaoh's daughter needed was, 
not abuse, not long exhortation, not tedious appeal, 
but to be told what to do. When she " saw the 
child," her heart spontaneously responded. Rich 
people are all human ; most of them are humane. 
There is no good in judging them harshly. Tell 
them how. 

2. Learn the best kind of monuments. Egypt^s 
king builded the pyramids. Egypt's princess res- 



A CHILD'S BES CUR 15 

cued Moses. The pyramids are out in the sands, 
trying mutely to perpetuate something, nobody 
knows what. Moses lives on I Who, then, has the 
truest remembrance ? 

3. Learn the greatest reason for thanksgiving. 
Thank God that you had helpers to save you when 
you were a child. " Saved by grace !" Oh, what 
a motto for a man's life ! She called the infant 
Moses, our text says, because she drew him out 
of the water. Moses means "saved." Think of a 
child called "saved" for his given name ! Would 
it ever forget its history ? Well, then, is that not 
your name ? And are you going to remember that 
you are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ ? 




n. 



The Mobe( Teacher. 



*^ Jesus, therefore, being wearied with Ms journey, sat thus on thewell^ 
and it was aljout the sixth Iwur^'' — John iv. 6. 




N" eastern traveler tells us there is in all 
the Holy Land only one spot which we 
are absolutely certain was trod by the feet of our 
blessed Redeemer ; and that is a little area of space, 
within a circumference of which the center is the 
well of Jacob in Sychar. All other localities have 
been questioned, and their claims to authenticity 
are unsatisfactory and confused. But there our 
Saviour once undoubtedly rested. What a precious 
place it must be to visit ! Few of us will ever see 
it with our mortal eyes; but we are going to it 
now, in imagination, for our instruction. 

In the Scripture narrative to which this text 
introduces us, we find the Son of God fulfilling the 



THE MODEL TEACHER. 17 

office of a teacher. Fine -exemplar is lie for us to 
imitate. Let us trace out the incidents of the story 
to the end, so as to ascertain, if possible, the secret 
of his success. For, strange as it seems to think 
of it, his entire class was converted that day. We 
find here illustrated three characteristics : zeal, tact, 
and spirituality. 

1. Obsei^ve the Saviour's Zeal. You may see 
this everywhere in our Lord's life, but here it is 
more evident than usual. It is shown in four 
particulars : 

• 1. He went to a most unwelcome neighborhood. 
There was nothing to attract him there, everything 
to repel All his hereditary prejudices were ar- 
rayed against the Samaritans. The Jews had no 
dealings with them. They were a proud, super- 
cilious set of people. They called themselves 
orthodox, and then did as they pleased. Yet, when 
the whole world was open for his effort, our Lord 
" must needs go through Samaria." 

2. He was satisfied to teach, only one scholar. 
A woman came to him, and that was all his class. 
He who had preached to vast multitudes, sat down 
there, under the hot noon, with patient fidelity, to 



18 THE MODEL TEACHER, 

instruct even a single kearer. He spoke just as 
kindly, and talked to her just as eloquently, as he 
did to the ten thousand afterward. You know she 
had a soul ; and when there was a soul to toil for, 
for that soul Jesus always toiled. 

3. He labored with a disagreeable pupil. This 
woman was a great sinner. She seems not to have 
had even one creditable point of character. She 
was notoriously profligate (verse 17). She was pert 
(verse 19). She was argumentative (verse 12). She 
was a liar (verse 18). The disciples wondered, when 
they came back, that Jesus spoke to the impudent 
creature (verse, 27). And she even wondered her- 
self (verse 9). It was effrontery unparalleled for 
her to talk as she did. She was conceited and 
brazen. She does not exhibit the slightest sign of 
modesty or shame. Yet it is wonderful to note 
the forbearance with which Jesus treats her all the 
time. 

4. He was himself wearied with work when he 
began. One li4;tle word there is in our text that 
you rarely think of when you read it over; the 
word ^''thusy He sat thus to teach; that is, all 
worn out just as he was on the long, hard journey; 



THE MODEL TEACHER. 19 

hungry, tired, thirsty, over-heated, and alone. Yet 
you see no sign of this ; he talks cheerfully on as ever. 

Well then, when you are wearied of hard neigh- 
borhoods ; when your mission fields try you ; when 
you put yourself out to go far through the rain or 
the sun, and find your class thinned down to two 
or three; when you are thoroughly discouraged 
over some vicious pupil, who annoys you almost 
beyond patience ; when you are fatigued with care, 
or jaded with unrewarded labor ; — then just remem- 
ber the Master, there in that despised spot, with 
his one scholar, and she a hateful, bad woman, earn- 
estly trying to do her good, and forgetting the 
hunger and heat that oppressed him. 
• IL Observe the Saviour's Tact That case re- 
quired a gTeat deal of wisdom to manage it exactly. 
And the shrewdness with which he interested the 
woman, and the adroitness with which he finally 
made his impression — that was his tact There is 
no successful teaching without tact. It is worth 
while to mark this example carefully. The tact of 
Jesus is shown in this instance in two particulars. 

1. He was ingenious in catching an illustration 
to interest her mind (verse 7). He took her water- 



20 THE MODEL TEACHER, 

pot for his text How characteristic this aptness 
always was of Christ ! When the fishermen drew 
in their wonderful wealth of fishes, he said to them 
they should become ^' fishers of men" (Matthew iv. 
19). When the multitudes followed him for the sake 
of the loaves, he said to them he was the " bread 
of life" (John vL 35). The true way to teach is 
just this — ^try to link what one does not know 
upon what he knows. 

2. He was quick in turning the illustration, so as 
to impress her conscience (verse 14). Jesus knew 
he gained nothing until he made that woman feel 
that she was a sinner. Indeed, this is the essential 
thing for every gospel teacher to do. The Bible is 
intended to lead men to the cross. But the huma\i 
intellect is dull, and the human heart is hard. The 
mind must be arrested, and then the conscience 
must be aroused. 

Now the difficulty you experience, perhaps, cov- 
ers both these points. You can neither catch 
similitudes, nor use them. One thing is very cer- 
tain : the heart has more to do with teaching the 
gospel than most people are aware o£ If you 
really desire to do good, you will find God will 



THE MODEL TEACHER. 21 

favor you in ingenuity. McCheyne, standing before 
a forge-fire, said kindly to tlie workman — " Who 
can dwell with everlasting burnings !" Payson, 
when his seat-mate in the coach expressed gladness 
that the journey was so near its end, put the 
inquiry, ''Are you prepared for the end of the 
long journey ?" 

m. Observe the Saviour's Spirituality. He 
made that entire interview religious. The ptlrpose 
of her conversion lay uppermost in his mind. This 
is shown in his avoiding what she wanted him to 
do, and in his doing what he did. 

1. He carefully -avoided all discussion of irrele- 
vant matters. And the more you study the story, 
the more plainly you will perceive how much 
patience this implied. Like all other sinners, the 
woman wanted to talk about something else. 

She proposed sectarian questions (verse 9). The 
first thing she did was to fly off upon the differ- 
ences between Mount Zion and Mount Gerizim. 
But our Lord pays not even the compliment of a 
notice to her polemic hint. He does not mention 
the Samaritan tenets in the whole interview. He 
talks only of the ''gift of God" (verse 10). 



22 THE MODEL TEACHER 

She suggested ritualistic points (verse 20). She 
was ferociously firm about the non-essentials. Our 
Lord baffles her again by the quietest of all eva- 
sions. He will not argue any subtle distinctions 
concerning forms of worship. Calmly he throws 
himself back on principles underlying all such dis- 
cussions, and urges the true " spirit" (verse 24). 

She ventured on speculative inquiries (verse 25). 
It is curious to observe how she found herself 
befogged in her own dogmatism, and majestically 
referred the question she had raised to the Messiah ! 
How she must have been startled to hear her 
teacher declare, *^I that speak to you am He!" 
(verse 26). 

2. He pressed home the one lesson persistingly, 
which he wanted her to learn. She found herself 
thwarted in every endeavor to ward off the rebuke 
she deserved. One all-embracing purpose was in 
our Saviour's mind during the whole conversation : 
to make her discover her sin, feel its guilt, and 
come penitently for pardon. 

He told her the exact state of her case. She 
was a dreadfully wicked woman. It was needful 
she should see that clearly. No delicacy, no dif- 



THE MODEL TEACHER. 23 

fidence, no fear of oflfeuse, kept back the trutli on 
his hps. She was to repent of her sins. It is false 
in fact, and recreant in spirit, to call either men, 
women, or children, "innocent." They cannot ber 
redeemed if they are. There is no salvation offered 
to such. Christ came into the world to make 
atonement for sinners, not for innocent people. 
The very argument he presses in order to show his 
love for children is found in their sins. ''The Son 
of Man is come to save that which was losV^ He 
is talking of " little ones" when he says that (Mat- 
thew xviii. 10). 

He told her of the demands of God's law. He 
never thought it necessary to lower even one requi- 
sition, or precept, or commandment, in order to win 
favor with a proud heart. No doubt, that thought- 
less, imperious creature was exceedingly difficult to 
manage. But there was no kindness to her in cov- 
ering up her sinfulness. She was ignorant : then 
she must learn. She was fractious : then she must 
submit. She was exposed to the wrath of an offended 
God : then she must be warned. " Now we know 
that what things soever the law saith, it saith to 
them who are under the law ; that every mouth 



24 TBE MODEL TEACHER, 

may be stopped, and all the world become guilty 
before God." 

He told her of the Eedeemer's help. Only hints 
of this conversation are here given ns. The gen- 
eral points of instruction are all that the Evangelist 
records. No one tells the story but John, the 
beloved disciple ; and John was not present Jesus 
must have repeated the incidents of the interview 
to him afterward; and so they appear here in 
brief But all the essentials of the plan of salva- 
tion are detailed. Our Saviour taught the woman 
how to come to himself, and be saved by faith. 

When your class gets the better of you in the 
recitation, and in spite of all your efforts draws you 
away into wordy disputes, think of the Master, 
with his one pupil ; and never forget how indefati- 
gably he kept her to the point, just by talking to 
her concerning her own soul's salvation. Eemem- 
ber, always, it is not what we say about the truth, 
that converts a soul, but the truth. And surely no 
teacher is making any real advance, unless he 
brings the great triangle of doctrine in personal 
contact with the life and conscience of each person. 
Rowland Hill was wont to say, there must be " the 



THE MODEL TEACHER, 25 

three E's" in every sermon — Euin, Righteousness 
and Eenewal. 

It is time to end this sermon, or you will not 
think it short. But suffer me to mention a few 
reflections, which you may dwell upon at your 
will. 

1. How noble an oflS.ce is that which Christ here 
accepted ! God never suffered an angel to be a 
teacher. No one could lead a soul to him but his 
owm Son, and those who are like him. God makes 
none but his children teachers of children. 

2. No person is beyond the reach of true Chris- 
tian zeal. Was there ever a more unpromising 
scholar than that one Jesus had there by the well 
of Jacob in Sychar ? 

3. The real object of teaching truth is the con- 
version of souls. The mind may be reformed, the 
manners cultivated ; but the class is a failure unless 
the conscience is reached, the will is broken, and 
the heart bowed in penitence at the foot of the cross. 

4. How few Christians are just Christ-like! Oh, 
that great, brave Life, that spent its energies in 
doing good! And we are troubled when under 
slightest inconvenience. The ancient band of Re- 

2 



26 THE MODEL TEACHER. 

demptorists took for their motto — "All for thee, 
blessed Jesus, all for thee !" 

5. How helpful is the encouragement to be 
drawn from such an instance as this ! Our Saviour 
used no peculiar instrument in conversion; only 
the same truth he has put in our hands freely. If 
it saved that woman, who is there it cannot save ? 

6. The ministry of reconciliation needs this zeal, 
and tact, and spirituality of the Mastek. Minis- 
ters are only Sabbath-school teachers with larger 
classes. Said the sainted Brainerd, "Oh, that I 
were a flaming fire in the service of my God !" 




in. 



iKe Mo^el fupiL 




'•'■The woman then left her icater-pot^ and went her way into the city^ and 
Haith to the onen^ Coone^ see a man which told m.e all things that ever I did : 
Is not this the Christ f "— John iy. 28, 29. 

HIS woman of Samaria was converted by 
the personal disclosure of the Lord Jesus 
to her mind and heart as the Eedeemer. The crisis 
of her history was reached at the point when, in 
reply to her suggestion as to an expected Messiah, 
the Saviour suddenly made the overwhelming an- 
nouncement*: ^' I that speak to you am He !" 

Spiritual conversion consists in the revelation of 
Christ to the human soul, in the instant when it 
has begun to feel the pressure of its imminent need. 
And practical conversion consists in the immediate 
surrender of the entire being to Christ as the Prince 
of Life. Both of these are luminously exhibited in 
the case of this poor creature, who came to Jacob's 



28 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

well with nothing of her own but her sins and -her 
water-pot, and departed without either, having re- 
ceived a new hope in her heart. 

We have been over part of this story before, 
seeking the characteristics of Jesus as a teacher in 
a class of one. We return to it again to find that 
his pupil becomes a teacher in her turn, and sets an 
example worthy of commendation. The two par- 
ticulars to be studied now are the spirit she mani- 
fested, and the work she undertook. 

I. This woman must have possessed considerable 
force of character. From the beginning to the end 
of the remarkable dialogue recorded here, you can 
not fail to notice how skillfully she employed that 
much-abused member, which the Psalmist calls his 
"glory." Her tongue becomes to us the index of 
her temper throughout, and follows it unerringly 
during all its changes. At first, she was sharp, 
pert, and argumentative ; but before the convei^a- 
tion ends, she is really an altered woman. The 
spirit she manifests has assumed a kind of positive 
attractiveness. You will see this, if you mark care- 
fully her docility, her decision, and her devotion, 
remembering all the time who she waa 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 29 

1. Her docility becomes apparent at the mo- 
ment when she asks her first favor of Christ 
'' The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me of 
this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to 
draw." 

You will be surprised, I am sure, to learn here 
that some commentators of high repute have seemed 
to understand that she was only proposing to Jesus 
that he should relieve her from her usual daily 
burden of comins: out there so far for Vv^ater from 
that well. And some others of equal intelligence 
have declared she was spitefully turning the Sav- 
iour's figure back upon him with the utmost bit- 
terness of sarcasm. But it is difiicult to discover 
either the ignorance or the malevolence which a 
mistake like the first of these interpretations, or a 
sneer like the second, would imply. If you read 
the whole dialogue, you will observe how abruptly 
the early flippancy of this woman collapses into a 
real sense of desire. Her question must have been 
sincere, although somewhat unintelligent Her 
mind was fairly arrested. Her sensibilities were 
moved. And even if her yearnings were vague, 
because she was both vicious and unenlightened, 



go THE MODEL PUPIL. 

yet her conscience was touched, and she truly be- 
gan to sigh for a better life. 

G-ood step forward is that for any teacher, when, 
the pert assumption of superiority all gone, his 
pupil just comes frankly admitting need, and says: 
"Help me." For at once, then, does the promise 
begin to bear with all its precious pressure. "The 
meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will 
he teach his way." 

2. Her decision becomes apparent at the moment 
when the wondering disciples returned, and beheld 
her talking with the Master. Singular picture is 
that which rises upon our imagination, when we 
read the slight record: "And upon this came his 
disciples, and marveled that he talked with the 
woman ; yet no man said. What seekest thou ? or, 
Why talkest thou with her?" 

There they hesitatingly stood, looking from one 
to the other, convinced that something was unusual, 
if not wrong ; yet not one venturing a comment, or 
making an inquiry. Eeverence kept them silent ; 
but so bright a woman as that must have discerned 
from their glances how much they disapproved of 
her presence, and how much concerning her conduct 



TEE MODEL PUPIL. 31 

they mistrusted. If no higher feeling than mere 
curiosity had prompted her stay, one might think 
lier footsteps of departure would have lingered 
until she could learn something more of this 
strange personage who had disclosed himself as 
the Anointed of God. But the remarkable part 
of her conduct is found in the unhesitating com- 
pliance with which she hastened on her errand 
away. Her promptness knew not even a mo- 
ment's delay; she silently withdrew without an 
inquiry. 

More important step forward still is that for a 
teacher, when his pupil's mind is full and his heart 
is absorbed; and with not one cavil at difl&cult 
doctrine, he fixes his eye steadfastly upon the duty 
of the instant, and seeks only to perform it. Things 
are all going well when any awakened sinner hon- 
estly says : "I thought upon my ways and turned 
my feet unto thy testimonies." 

3. Her devotion becomes apparent at the moment 
when she set out upon her humiliating errand. One 
little touch of naturalness there is in the story, 
which shows the care exercised in gathering up all 
the fragments of historic truth in the Scriptures, 



32 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

that nothing miglit be lost : " The woman then left 
her water-pot and went her way." 

You need not be afraid of forcing this casual 
mention of a striking fact, if you think that in it is 
found one of the finest evidences of her conversion. 
The vessel she forsook was to her a costly sacrifice. 
Whether she expected to ever regain it we "have no 
hint ; she certainly risked its loss among strangers. 
Few Jews were there then who deemed it necessary 
to keep faith with her nation. The act appears pre- 
cisely like the surrender of customs, when Matthew 
became a disciple ; like the forsaking of the nets 
when Simon left all in order to follow Christ ; like 
Bartimeus' casting away his outer garment that he 
might hurry to Jesus. The motive of this woman 
is not stated, but conjecture is easy. Perhaps her 
mind was so occupied with the stupendous disclos- 
ure she had listened to that she deemed this mere 
item of loss insignificant. Perhaps her desire to do 
good was so earnest that she feared even the accus- 
tomed burden balanced on her head might hinder 
her haste. Perhaps her sense of gratitude was so 
affectionate that she willingly left her valuable 
vessel for the convenience of those whom she knew 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 33 

to be unsupplied with any means to quench their 
thirst. Whatever was her motive, the act artlessly 
evidences that she had begun to devote her all to 
her newly disclosed Friend. 

True religious zeal loves to write Jesus' name 
on each of its most treasured possessions ; and you 
may begin to feel very happy when one of your 
pupils inquires how he can do something for Christ. 

Thus much concerning the spirit which this 
woman, nameless and unhistoric, manifested. Re- 
becca found a husband, and Moses found a wife, 
from a mere visit at a well-side ; but this Samaritan 
convert found that which was better than either. 
The Holy Ghost had said to her there, in that 
sultry hour: " Thy Maker is thine husband — the 
Lord of hosts is his name ; and thy Eedeemer, the 
Holy One of Israel !" And in the mystery of her 
spiritual espousal, she became endowed with graces 
richer and rarer than the golden gifts with which 
the servant of Abraham adorned Isaac's beautiful 
bride. 

II. We come now, in the second place, to con- 
sider the work this woman undertook. The exact 
words of our text are in point Connect with them. 



34 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

however, the remainder of the narrative, and you 
will discover these three particulars : the field she 
selected, the instrument she employed, and the suc- 
cess she achieved 

1. Observe how singular was the field she se- 
lected. It was actually the hardest in the world 
for her to enter. Certain necessities and accessories 
of duty there are almost always, which help to 
decide concerning its character. Just look at these 
details here. 

She went where her story would certainly be un- 
welcome. It was a Samaritan city, and, knowing 
exactly how violent were their prejudices, she was 
going to tell them tliat their previous traditions 
were untrue; Gerizim was the wrong mountain; 
they had worshiped they knew not what ; salvation 
was really of the Jews. 

She went where her message would be unwelcome. 
This was an exceedingly wicked city. Many of 
the people were no better than she was. She had 
before her the task of arousing their consciences, 
as well as of convincing their minds. She must 
needs prove to them that God was a spirit, and 
they that would worship him must worship him in 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 35 

spirit and in truth. If she slioiild succeed in draw- 
ing forth any adherents, she knew that Jesus would 
attack their sins first, just as he did hers. Hitherto 
it had been considered quite sufficient in Samaria 
to hold orthodox views concerning the two versions 
of the Pentateuch. It seems to have mattered, 
little how many husbands a person had, or how she 
got them ; the thing to be sound upon was the dis- 
puted mountain they SAVore \}j. 

She went where her sex would be unwelcome. 
The record seems explicit ; she addressed herself 
" to the men." Men never love to be exhorted by 
women. The}^ loved it less in old times than now. 
They loved it less among those eastern nations than 
we do here. The old Rabbins had a maxim that 
read in this wav : '* Talking: with a woman is one 
of the six things vdiich make a disciple impure." 

She went vdiere herself would be peculiarly un- 
welcome. It was her own city. Some of those 
men did not know her. It is always difficult to 
speak of personal religion to strangers. Young 
converts are generally as diffident as they are zeal- 
ous. But some of those men did know her — alas ! 
too well. If there had been as many good men in 



36 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

Sodom as that woman had had husbands, first and 
last, in Sychar, God would never have depressed 
the Dead Sea to its present level, and Lot would 
never have been driven out by a shower of fire. 
This person mnst have been understood in those 
precincts. Six of her hearers, at least, had some- 
what intimate acquaintance with her antecedents. 
All this made her errand awkward and hard. 

2. Observe, however, how simple was the in- 
strument she employed. The entire sermon she 
preached is found in the compact verses of the text. 
Analyze it for a moment, that you may remark its 
frankness, its earnestness, and its ingenuity. 

She frankly acknowledged that her own sins 
were discovered. " All that ever I did" — that cov- 
ered a great deal of biographic ground. Without 
making any pretensions of fitness as a moral 
teacher, she disarmed their earliest prejudices by 
an honest confession that he had found her out on 
the instant. She had said, "• Give me the living 
water !" He answered, " Go, call thy husband !'^ 
Was that bringing a serpent to one who asked for 
an egg? Not so; remember always that convic- 
tion of sin is the first answer of grace to a sinner. 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 37 

She earnestly professed that her own faith had 
been won ; yet she put it delicately in the fashion 
of a question, "Is not this the Christ?" So bold 
an avowal must have cost her much. Perils, as 
well as reproaches, surrounded apostates in those 
days. She was fairly defying the tenets of all her 
previous training. Solemn moment is that always, 
when, out from a circle of worldlings and unbeliev- 
ers, comes one whose heart has been touched by 
the Spirit, taking a stand on the Saviour's side, 
and modestly accepting his cross ! 

She ingeniously brought her own experience to 
bear upon them, and thus converted her most 
manifest reproach into an argument. "All that 
ever I did" — not what he did ; no relation of sub- 
lime disclosures, only a mere admission of discov- 
ery. She appealed to what they would have said 
in censure. She said in the touching refrain we 
sometimes sing, " Even mer And then they knew 
there must be something in it. That was all she 
said. Her message ended where the Gospel ends. 
The Bible has only one word for mortals to speak ; 
that was the exact word she used — " Come." In 
the Greek it is an adverb of beckoning — " Hither T 



38 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

That is the royal call. Christ is waiting just with- 
out ; we enter and say — hither ! 

3. Obserye how extraordinary was the success 
she achieved. I need not trace this out at length ; 
the record will speak for itself. One woman seems 
to have moyed an entire city. Jesus was rejected 
of his kinsmen, she was accepted of hers ; he was 
threatened in Nazareth, she was heeded in Svchar. 
The last became first, and the first last. All this 
illustrates the wonderful soyereignty of God. 

She made many converts. They listened and 
obeyed immediately. *' Then they went out of the 
city, and came unto him." The acquiescence was 
instantaneous. Did any one ever hear of even 
the least good gained by delay in the going to 
Jesus ? 

She made many true converts. " Many of the 
Samaritans of that city believed on him for the 
saying of the woman which testified, He told me 
all that ever I did." You see it was her own ex- 
perience which carried the day. A large number 
seem to have been spiritually renewed that very 
afternoon Why do many good people feel so sus- 
picious over sudden conversions? The sudden 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 39 

conversions in the Bible are all safer than the 
tardy ones. 

She made many useful converts. They went 
right to work, urging others to come to Jesus. 
"He abode there two days, and many more be- 
lieved, because of his own word ; and said unto the 
woman, Now we believe, not because of thy say- 
ing : for we have heard him ourselves, and know 
that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 
world." Does any one suppose that this woman 
felt grieved to learn that they heard and trusted 
and loved Jesus, no longer for her sake, but for 
his own ? 

Here the history closes. We know no more of 
this Samaritan convert. She passes away as silently 
as she appeared ; but the lesson of her life lingers. 
What shall it be to us ? 

1. Learn, first, that no great talent is needed to 
do good. Who could have predicted such success 
for such a creature ? It is piety, not education ; it 
is spuituality, not culture ; it is experience, not 
learning, which Grod uses in conversion of souls. 
Yet with piety pervading, all these gifts may be 
made to help. 



40 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

2. Learn, second, that all glory of true usefulness 
belongs to Christ. What became of this woman ? 
History drops her when her work is done. One of 
the old Fathers records that she was named Photina, 
that she preached at Carthage, that she was mar- 
tyred in one of the African persecutions, and that 
he saw her head, which is now kept as a relic in 
Eome, in the church of St. Paul ! Pretty well that, 
for a hierarchy that honors woman more than 
Christ ! To canonize this convert, however, seems 
to have been a little harder than common. 

3. Learn, also, that the nearest field of useful- 
ness is often the best. Many people spend half a 
life-time looking for their vocation, while God is 
speaking almost audibly to them : Begin at home. 
The prophet utters a most significant admonition — 
" that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh." 
Do you remember how kindly our Lord dismisses 
the man out of whom he had cast the legion of 
devils, and who wanted to remain with him ? 
"Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto 
him. Go home to thy friends, and tell them how 
great things the Lord hath done for thee." 

4. Learn that there are occasions in which women 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 41 

may be even more useful than men. They have 
more tact They have more fervency. They have 
more fortitude. It was a mean Jewish proverb 
which said — "He who instructs his daughter in the 
Law plays the fool." We ought to have outgrown 
that long ago. This woman had a clearer percep- 
tion than any Jew Christ had yet found ; for she 
understood him as the Teacher, and they all de- 
manded him as a King. 

5. Learn, likewise, that common-place self-denial 
sometimes becomes one of the clearest evidences of 
grace. To leave a water-pot for a thirsty disciple 
may possibly show a thoughtfulness which is the 
fruit of the Spirit ; while to surrender a fortune 
may only show a temper or mood which is the off- 
spring of ostentation and pride. Simon made an 
expensive feast for Jesus ; but the most acceptable 
part of the entertainment consisted in the unan- 
nounced generosity of a poor woman, who crept in 
without invitation and broke her box of alabaster 
lovingly upon the head of her Saviour. 

6. Learn that new converts have certainly a fair 
field of usefulness in the instruction of others. 
Even the conservative Calvin remarks on this pas- 



42 THE MODEL PUPIL. 

sage : " She would have acted inconsiderately if she 
had assumed the office of a teacher ; but when she 
desires nothing more than to excite her fellow-citi- 
zens to hear Christ speaking^ we will not say that 
she forgot herself, or proceeded further than she 
had a right to do ; she merely does the office of a 
trumpet or a bell, to invite others to come to 
Christ." 

7. Learn once more that the peculiar privilege of 
"him that heareth" is that he may say, "Come." 
He who temporizes will be like Demas, who for- 
sook Paul for the present world ; he who calculates 
will be like Ananias, who kept back part of the 
price; he who covets will be like Achan, who 
cleaved hope from his soul with a golden wedge. 
But he who gives himself wholly to Christ will be 
honored as an usher in his service, opening the 
door of his kingdom to his sons. 

8. Learn, finally, that the best memorial of any 
one is found in the souls he has won to the cross. 
For there begins a line of perpetual usefulness that 
can never end. The Empress Helena built a 
church, at vast expense, over this well of Jacob. 
But the proud edifice crumbled many a long year 



THE MODEL PUPIL. 43 

ago. The nibbisli of it clogs the water-course even 
to the present day. What has preserved the spot 
is the memory of a nameless woman, who was con- 
verted there. And while the world stands it will 
remain thus sacred and unforgotten, actually the 
only spot in Palestine authentic, as having once had 
the presence of the Divine Teacher and his Samari- 
tan pupil. 




IV. 



Woxb& io i\e Wear^, 




" The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should 
know hx>w to speak a word in season to him that is weary. — Isaiah l. 4. 



HAVE happened in my reading , upon a 
description of the hieroglyphics by which 
the ancient Egyptians represented alms-giving. A 
naked child was feeding honey to a bee ; and in the 
child's hand was a heart ; and the bee had lost its 
wings. 

The details of this symbol will bear analysis. It 
was a child — in order to mark the guilelessness of 
spirit which lies at the center of all true charity. 
The child was naked — to show that, possessing 
nothing of his own, he was willing to be the hum- 
ble almoner of some higher power. It was honey 
he was feeding away — in order to denote that he 
was bestowing what would have been sweet to him- 



WORDS TO THE WEARY, 45 

self, but was indispensable to the bee. The heart 
was in his hand — to indicate the warm sympathy 
and affection prompting the service. It was a bee 
he fed, not a wasp, nor a butterfly, nor a drone — in 
order to suggest that only a faithful worker deserved 
help from self-denial, however generous. But the 
bee was wingless now — to intimate that a time 
might come when even industry would fail, and the 
most willing life would be in the straits of positive 
exigency. 

And now, although this was the fancy of a merely 
heathen imagination, I present it for your study as 
the finest picture I have met of gospel grace and 
duty, especially as exemplified in the work of a 
true Sunday-school teacher. It precisely embodies 
the meaning of the text upon which we are to 
dwell : " The Lord God hath given me the tongue 
of the learned, that I should know how to speak a 
word in season to him that is weary." 

Here we find stated in explicit terms, first, the 
Objects of Christian zeal, and, secondly, the Instru- 
ment for its exercise. 

I. Among all the names applied in the Scripture 
to the Objects of Christion zeal, I know of none 



46 WORDS TO THE WEARY. 

more comprehensive and affecting than that here 
employed — "him that is weary." 

1. Some are weary through toil "Man goeth 
forth unto his work and to his labor until the even- 
ing." It is not easy for us in our sumptuous homes 
to quite appreciate the unutterable disgust one 
would be likely to acquire for the ceaseless itera- 
tions of a narrow calling. Men there are who 
spend forty years in fashioning pin-points or drilling 
needles' eyes. Children there are who grow old 
and deformed picking off the flocks of cotton from 
the running web of a mill. And these people be- 
come tired, and say in words older than they imag- 
ine: "What profit hath a- man of all his labor 
which he taketh under the sun ? All things are 
full of labor ; man can not utter it : the thing that 
hath been it is that which shall be ; and that which 
is done is that which shall be done ; and there is 
no new thing under the sun." The world is full of 
human machines ; yet with this difference, machines 
are not disgTisted, and they often are. 

2. Some are weary through trial A brave man 
may accept with all submission the lot which God 
gives to him, and yet now and then lift the prayer. 



WORDS TO THE WEARY. 47 

" Have mercy "upon me, Lord! for I am weak; 
I am weary with, my groaning ; all the night make 
I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my 
tears." We think it hard to lose a child; there are 
those who think it really harder to be nnable to 
educate and clothe their children. We think it 
hard to have a wife an invalid ; there are those who 
think it harder to be obliged to stand by and know 
their wives are hungry, and feeble, and sick, and 
yet can not help it 

3. Some are weary through neglect They feel 
alone in the universe. They look around anxiously 
for an opening, as Joseph and Mary did in the cele- 
brated inn at Bethlehem ; there was no place then 
for the mother of Jesus except in the stable. 
On this planet there never has been any room for 
poor people. The population seems to them ex- 
ceedingly dense. Somebody received title to all 
the land before they were bom. "As for the 
mighty man, he has the earth, and the honorable 
man dwells in it." And the world is so fall of 
mighty men, not to mention the honorable, that be- 
tween them working men find the space most 
amazingly used up. They go up to what seems a 



48 WOBDS TO THE WEABY, 

friendly guide-board, modestly to ask the way" ; it 
turns out to be a fierce warning against trespassing 
on some one's premises. And after one lias wan- 
dered around in the night awhile, within the pre- 
cincts of a Christian city, without finding any 
lodging, will it be any surprise if he becomes 
slightly heterodox ? And as he looks up overhead, 
and sees only that dome of the sky, blue as if made 
out of steel, and glittering with bosses of brass, 
will it be strange if he murmurs: "Behold the 
height of the stars ! How high they are ! How 
doth God know ? Can he judge through the dark 
cloud?" Would you be able to reason any be::te! ? 
4. Some are weary through sin. Some are even 
weary of sin, and would forsake it if they knew how. 
" The candle of the wicked shall be put out ;" so 
we preach to them with sepulchral warnings of 
God's wrath. They believe it; but then it very 
naturally seems to them that they will be left any 
way in the dark if they put it out themselves, un- 
less we preach a little further on in the doctrine. 
" The way of the transgressor is hard ;" they know 
that as well as the wise man who wrote the Pro- 
verbs ; they are quite tired of it already. Tossed 



WORDS TO THE WEARY. 49 

about upon the billows of a tempestuous experi- 
ence, they hear now and then a call — '^ Come unto 
me all ye that labor and are heav}' laden, and I will 
give you rest." They start up at that strange 
sound, as the beggar Bartimeus started up at the 
gates of Jericho, and with passionate earnestness 
straining their eyes, pitifully blind, they ask what 
it means. I fear there are yet in the world disci- 
ples dull enough to answer even such needy crea- 
tures, ''Jesus of Nazareth passeth by," and then 
turn with violence to charge them that they hold 
their peace. Thus the "labor of the foolish weari- 
eth every one of them, because he knoweth not 
how to go into the city." 

Now all these classes of weary persons, I am 
sure, are meant to be included in the specification 
of the text. They are the real objects of Christian 
zeal under the gospel. The glad office of Christ's 
followers is to aid and to succor them. The Sun- 
day-school organization, with its appliances for 
visiting, instructing, and mission- working, aims at 
them. 

II. The question arises at once, of course, how 
this work is to be done. And that leads on to our 

3 



50 WORDS TO THE WEARY. 

second matter of consideration, namely, the Instru- 
ment which is to be employed: "The Lord God 
hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I 
should know how to speak a word in season to him 
that is weary." Now there are three suggestions 
here in one : the feebleness of the instrument in 
appearance, the secret of its incontrovertible power, 
and the condition of success in its use. 

1. The instrument does seem insignificant. Over 
against all this aggregate of human need, it is 
soberly proposed to set the exercise of one of our 
commonest endowments — speech, A word — and 
yet " a word fitly chosen is like apples of gold in 
pictures of silver." What is a word? We speak 
a thousand and mind nothing of the waste. Yet 
God used only one to make all the world. He 
stood over the ocean of immensity, and said to an 
uncreated universe. Be ! And forthwith it sprang 
into existence, majestic and finished, like a new 
island in, the shoreless sea. To us one word seems 
nothing ; we fling them around in careless luxuri- 
ance ; we point a moral with them, we adorn a tale 
with them ; we shorten them, we lengthen them, 
we mispronounce them, just to make them musical, 



WORDS TO THE WEARY, 51 

or force them into rhyme ; we play pranks on them, 
construct riddles for children out of them ; we fire 
sarcasms with them, turn compliments with them, 
and put them for stings into the end of a reproach. 
And yet our Saviour comforted Martha, taught 
Mary, and raised Lazarus, with a word. 

2. There is, then, a secret of power somewhere in 
this instrument. The emphasis of our text falls on 
the expression, " a word in season^ The force does 
not reside in the syllables, but in the opportune- 
ness of the utterance. There is an exigency of 
moral need brought on by the Spirit of grace. 
There are crises in the history of most persons in 
this world, when the soul pauses, as if poised on 
the very pinnacle of decision. It is settling some 
one of the grand questions of life and eternity. 
Now almost any thing will turn it one way or 
another way. Then some slight preponderating 
impression is made. "Death and life are in the 
power of the tongue." This is why the Psalmist 
so often calls his tongue his " glory." The wonder- 
ful power of our Saviour's discourses is discovered 
just here. Ah ! but you say, never man spake 
like- this man; we find no such words on cur lips 



52 VrOBDS TO THE WEARY. 

as Jesus used. ^Vhy yes, my true yoke-fellow, in- 
deed you can find such; and not only such words 
as Jesus uttered, but the very words. He defeated 
Satan in the wilderness with three verses of Deuter- 
onomy, just to show you and me how much light- 
ning-like force there is in one of those old books 
of Moses. You have all of them — the Pentateuch, 
the prophets, and the apostles likewise ; and beyond 
that, the exact words of the Master in the Grospels. 

8. One thing, however, needs to be noted closely 
as a condition of success in*the use of this instru- 
ment of speech : there is a caution intimated in the 
text We can not alwavs know what to sav, or 
how to say it. by intuition. The Lord God gives 
*' the tongue of the learned^^^ that each of us should 
'-'''know how to speak a word in season." Xow this 
does not mean great scholarship, as the world terms 
it This learning comes from the Word of God 
for its text-book, and the spirit of prayer for its ac- 
quisition. 

A Sunday-school worker needs to be thus 
^' learned" in his intellect. That is, he must be in- 
telligent in the Scriptui'es ; for, you observe, it is 
God's promises that do the work of helping and 



WOEDS TO THE WEARY. 53 

saving, not ours. Hence- it is that "the heart of 
the righteous studieth to answer." No wonder that 
Job for once lost his patience when those miserable 
comforters of his compelled him to exclaim : " How 
forcible are right words ! but what doth your argu.- 
ing reprove !" Let the word of God dwell richly 
in you. Thus many an uneducated and even illiter- 
ate believer becomes, like ApoUos, "mighty in the 
Scriptures;'' he waters as worthily as even a Paul 
could plant. 

A Sunday-school worker needs to be "learned" 
in his sensibilities. That is, he must be sympathetic 
in his applications of the truth to individi^ial cases. 
His heart must be in his offering. The essential 
element of this kind of usefulness consists in its 
cordiality, its community of spirit,^ its recognition 
of the great common humanity. Remember there 
are just as many notes to the octave in the poor 
blind man's violin at your door, as in your daugh- 
ter's harp gleaming with its gold in your parlor. 
Prejudice must be broken down with courtesy. 
The self-respect of those you benefit ought carefully 
to be kept up. Hence a word, kind, Avomanly, 
brotherly, is sometimes w^orth more than even ex- 



64 WORDS TO THE WEARY. 

traordinary benefactions. " Weary" people are on 
the look-ont for superciliousness. • They get a good 
deal of it. They suspect arrogance naturally. But 
every barrier is leveled when they feel a fraternal 
grasp. Pride disappears from the defiant eye of 
poverty when they see the heart in the hand which 
is feeding the wingless bee. 

A Sunday-school worker needs to be " learned" 
in his judgment. That is, he must be unaffectedly 
patient, and unsuspicious, and long-suffering, and 
charitable in his estimates of those to whom he at- 
tempts to speak a word in season. We are often 
so annoyed by sham pretensions of wretchedness 
that we fall into the habit of looking on all these 
street- stragglers as if they were only fit subjects for 
penitentiary discipline. Some of them are, but it is 
cruel to class all poor people promiscuously together. 
Ask many a Christian to visit with 3^ou in the des- 
titute neighborhoods where yon go for mission 
scholars. You will find yourself obliged to keep 
checking him often in the midst of a well-meant 
but most preposterous lecture. • He counsels moral- 
ity, as if they were thieves. He advises church- 
going, when he would be thunderstruck to find one 



WORDS TO THE WEARY. 55 

of them in his pew, and Avhen they have not the 
decencies of clothing to appear in the house of God. 
He hopes they keep the Sabbath ; he is sorrowfully 
surprised to find the children without Testaments. 
Now you happen to know he is all wide of the 
mark, yet not one member of the family Avill tell 
him so. He is welcome to his impression of them, 
only it makes them feel spitefully toward visitors. 
It is hard to be misjudged, hard to be considered 
vicious, because one is very poor. 

A Sunday-school worker needs to be "learned" 
in his experience. That is, he must feel in his own 
heart the blessed comforts of Grod's grace before he 
can bring them effectively to others. The picture 
which the old poet Chaucer long years ago drew of 
a faithful minister is worth quoting to you, for it is 
just in point: 

" He paid no court to pomps or reverence, 
Nor spiced Ms conscience at his soul's expense ; 
But Jesus' love which owns no pride or pelf, 
He .taught — 6zi^ first he folloioed it himself y 

Let as remember, once for all, that it is not mere 
fine intellectual power of adaptation of truth to 
subtle needs of the soul which does good, but spirit- 



56 WORDS TO THE WEAEY. 

ual and experimental knowledge, derived from per- 
sonal reception of the truth. The untanght Peru- 
vians cured many a fever with their bitter bark 
through the centuries before any one of them knew 
it was only the quinine in it that made the medi- 
cine. He who had been helped gave what had 
helped him to his neighbor. I suppose it is always 
true that "out of the aj)undance of the heart the 
mouth speaketh;" but never is it truer than when 
one is trying to "speak a word in season to him 
that is wearv." 

Thus much for an exposition of the text. There 
remains no space here for an application, but I will 
add hints for those who desire it. 

1. You find here a test of church efficiency. These 
words were primarily spoken of Christ. That pro- 
noun "Me" in the text refers to him. And he 
accepted them. See Luke iv. 14-22, Hence all 
true Christianity centers here. An ancient skeptic 
thought he was annihilating the faith once delivered 
to the saints when he said : " Christianity is the re- 
ligion of the sorrowful." Indeed, that is its glory, 
and one would think there was room enouo:!! in the 
world for it, too. Our text constitutes the Drc^^ 



WORDS TO THE WEARY. 57 

lamation of an evangelic system. See Matthew 
xi. 2-6. Hence, back on any cliurcli, of whatever 
name, of whatever diversity of ritual or form of 
creed, falls this vital question, demanding imme- 
diate answer : Does it preach the gospel to the poor F 
Is it speaking words in season to him t'lat is weary ? 
2. You discover here likev/ise the dejotli of indi- 
vidual obligation. You are poor ; you are unedu- 
cated; you are busy. The point is, you have a 
tongue, and you can make it learned enough, by 
God's blessilig, to be eminent in services of useful- 
ness. The pious Eutherford wrote to one of his 
friends: "Madam, it is part of the truth of your 
profession that you drop v/ords into the ear of your 
husband continually of eternity, judgment, death, 
hell, and heaven." The truth plants itself in our 
own experience ; on peril of our piety v/e are set at 
this blessed woi'k. The hope of heaven makes 
upon us the sharpest of all* possible demands. "If 
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
of his." "Pure religion, and undefiled before God 
and the Father, is this : To visit the fatherless and 
widoiDS in their affliction.^ and to keep one!s self un- 
spotted from the ivorld.'''' 



58 WORDS TO THE WEARY 

3. You learn here, also, the extraordinary privi- 
lege Grocl has given his children in the form of their 
service of him. The lightning strikes, the pesti- 
lence kills, war desolates, and all these are instru- 
ments of his to do the divine will. But we have 
only the beneficence to scatter, the mercy to exhibit, 
the love to bring, the sweet welcome work in all 
this weary world to do. Andi, oh ! what a com.fort 
the reminiscences of fidelitv become when one finds 
himself withdrawn suddenly fromi the power of 
working ! In that terrible hour of his adversity, 
remember how Job consoled himself: " Oh ! that I 
were as in months past. When the ear heard me, 
then did it bless me ; and when the eve saw me, 
then it gave witness to me : because I delivered the 
poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had 
none to help him. The blessing of him that was 
ready to perish came upon me ; and I caused the 
widow's heart to sing for ]ojy 

4. You are taught here, moreover, to stir up the 
gift of God that is within you. Some people think 
that there is a mysterious miracnlousness in this 
ability to speak, either in conference, teaching, con- 
dolence, or prayer. Not so at all : speech is one 



V/ORDS TO THE WEARY. 59 

of the most common-place endowments in the world. 
But it needs stimulant and skill. Poor Jeremiah 
once said : " Ah ! Lord God, behold, I can not 
speak, for I am a child." Moses once said : "0 my 
Lord, I am not eloquent ; I am slow of speech, and 
of a slow tongue." But it turned out that both of 
these men were able to do something. Perhaps you 
are getting "weary" yoiirself, and need a "word in 
season." Be not weary in well-doing. The time 
has not yet arrived for you to enter the land " where 
the weary are at rest :" let us labor lest we enter 
not in. 







^'0 croMo troMo ^-Qjs 





V. 

life for life. 

" Verily^ verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it dbideth alone; tut if it die, it tringeth forth much 
fruit. He that loveth his life sliall lose it, and he that hateth 7iis life in this 
world shall keep it unto life eternal^ — John xii. 24, 25. 

UE Saviour is here talking of himself. 
He has been instrncting his disciples con- 
cerning the ignominy of his coming departure. 
Yet he does not seem to consider the fact of it a 
misfortune, nor the manner of it a shame. His 
words intimate triumph. " The hour is come,'' 
he says, "that the Son of Man should be glori- 

1. The philosophy of a contradiction so startling 
he now goes on to explain. It consisted in the 
revelation and development of a higher life in the 
instant of ruin to a lower. His earthly existence 
covered the principle of an existence celestial and 



LIFE FOR LIFE. 61 

divine. He was to become the life of men by 
dying in their place. 

2. The illustration he employs to exhibit his 
thought is one drawn from familiar experience. He 
sa3^s to .those simple-minded hearers : Take any 
common seed, such as a sower carries. Examine it 
carefully. Its productiveness is now all out of 
sight, enveloped and imprisoned by the remnants 
of last year's harvest. It v/ill grow, if it is planted ; 
but the present form of it will disappear in the 
growing. It must die to live. The dry habiliments 
of a former existence are coarsely inclosing all its 
promise of a new. It has to perpetuate itself by 
destruction. Out of the present condition it wears 
it must utterly perish, in order that it may reap- 
pear in the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the 
ear. Activity out of inertness, increase out of sin- 
gleness, are to be secured only by reproduction out 
of ruin. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit." 

3. The application of this figure is made imme- 
diately. The Saviour seems to say of himself: I 
must die in order to live. I am set for the fall and 



Q2 LIFE FOE LIFE. 

rising again of many in Israel, and must therefore 
fall and rise again. I left lieaven to save men. I 
must perfect my purpose by dying in tlieir behalf 
God's only-begotten Son must be crucified that 
God's many redeemed sons may be brpught to 
glory. Life for life ; this is the price, the penalty, 
and the pajmient. 

4. The recaJi of the rule is now extended, so as 
to make it embrace, not only his life, but that of 
each one of those for whom his offering was 
to become available. He avows this as the 
fixed principle of the entire plan of redemption ; 
life for life ; life of the lower sort sacrificed with- 
out reserve for the sake of life of the higher. 
"He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he 
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto 
life eternal." 

II. This seems to be the true exposition of our 
text. But it does not stand alone. And so anx- 
ious am I that this -rule of the gospel should be 
recognized clearly, as the basis of the counsel I de- 
sire to press, that I offer the corroboration which 
our Lord himself presents, a little farther in detail. 
On three other occasions he repeats the same gen- 



LIFE FOR LIFE. g3 

eral form of ]'epresentation, ^vitli ovAy slightly vary- 
ing direction as to its aim. 

1. Once, when he was in the reaion of Osesarea 
Philippi, he was advising his disciples seriously 
concerning the grand purpose of becoming his fol- 
lowers, trying to make them, appreciate how much 
it involved. He had already disclosed to .them th(: 
fact and the manner of his death. He knew they 
would be offended with the prospect. Su.ddenly he 
arose to the loftiest ground he ever occupied in his 
demands upon them. Not only should they accept 
without scandal this crucifixion of their acknowh 
edo'ed leader, not onlv must thev hold themselves 
ready to be crucified also in his name, but the Eo- 
man gibbet should henceforth become the very 
sj^mbol of the new faith. " If any man v^ill come 
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
cross daily, and follow me : for whosoever will save 
his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life 
for my sake, shall find it." The reference here is 
to the act of conversion which pledges the believ- 
ing soul to Christ. He is crucified with him. 

2. The next time our Saviour employed this 
form of expression, he aimed its force at the full- 



64 LJFE FOB LIFE. 

ness of consecration, vrliich everv true disciple of his 
was bound to , cultivate. He himself held back 
nothing from his worl^f'He foi-sook heaven for 
earth, angels for men, wealth for poverty, the tran- 
quil felicities of his etenial Father's companion- 
ship for the restless narrowness of an humble lot, 
without "U place where to lay his homeless head. 
He allowed himself to become entangled in no as- 
sociations, involved in no cares, fettered by no 
occupation, that would hinder his entire absorption 
in preaching the glad tidings to men. This exam- 
ple of his own consecration he offers as a measure 
of ours. " If any man come unto me, and hate not 
(that is, comparatively) his father and mother, wife 
and children, brethren and sisters, vea, and his own 
life also, he can not be my disciple.'' '*He that 
loveth father and mother more than me, is not 
worthy of me : and he that loveth son or daughter 
m.ore than me, is not worthv of me. He that find- 
eth his life shall lose it. and he that loseth his life 
for my sake, shall find it." Here he intends to ex- 
hibit the extensiveness of our surrender to him. 
He gave his life for us : he claims the life he has 
bought at such a price. 



LIFE FOR LIFE. 65 

3. The third occasion upon which our Lord em- 
ployed this almost proverbial form of expression, 
was when he was predicting the alarm which many 
would feel at the downfall of Jerusalem. He ad- 
vised all who were in Judea to flee to the moun- 
tains ; to remember Lot's wife, and look not back 
on the doomed city; to follow his guidance and 
trust to him implicitly for deliverance. "Whoso- 
ever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it ; and 
whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." 
Here he means to counsel fidelity, and forbid fear, 
under all perilous and extreme forms of trial. He 
says : Give your life to me ; it is more precious in 
my sight than in your own. I will keep it ; you 
can not. If you attempt to manage your protec- 
tion, you will be more imperiled than ever. Do 
your duty and leave the rest to me. " He that 
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall 
abide under the shadow of the Almighty." 

III. What, then, is the instruction our Saviour 
desires, in all this, to give ? Simpl v tliis : From 
the beginning to the end of our earthly round of 
existence and service, there is only one rule of un- 
varvino' decision — life for life. If one wants the new 



66 I^IFE FOR LIFE. 

life by conversion, he must give life for life. If ono 
asks for the measure of consecration, the answer is — 
life for life. If one feels frightened at peril, he 
must surrender his life to save his life. If one in- 
quires for an unfailing principle of success in use- 
fulness, here it is furnished by the Lord of glory — 
life for life. Hence we now reach the applications 
of the truth we have learned to our work as Sunday- 
school teachers. 

1. Here is a picture of true Christian manhood. 
^^ None of these things move me, neither count I my 
life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry Avhich I have 
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of 
the grace of God." The motto of all real living to 
Christ is: "I die daily." ''For thy sake we are 
killed all the day long." Just as a corn of wheat 
must perish to be fruitfal, so every believer must 
put all the surroundings of his earthly existence 
into his surrender to the Redeemer. " That which 
thou sowest is not quickened except it die." 

We are to "mortify our members." That does 
not mean humiliate them, or shame them, but kill 
them, make them dead. " If ye live after the flesh. 



LIFE FOR LIFE, 67 

ye shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify 
the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Hence, this 
is the question to start with : Are you, who teach 
others, yourself dead to the world ? 

2. Here is a corrective of all sentimentalism in 
piety. This continuous martyrdom is not an acci- 
dent or an infliction, but a necessity, understood 
from the beginning. Hence all lachrymose, lacka- 
daisical bewailing of one's lot is mere meanness and 
folly. A mock-heroic feeling is all out of place. 
And these multiplied forms of devoteeism, by which 
one tortures himself into maceration, are not to be 
mistaken for real devotion. 

A monk in his cell is no nearer communion with 
his God, for all that he is mechanically separate 
from communion with anyone else. ^^Jesuita; non 
Jesus itay A n.^»iiL.is no more a bride of heaven for 
refusing to be a bride on earth when she has the 
opportunity. The promise of a white robe by and 
by is none the surer for her taking the white vail 
now. These may seem to a few silly enthusiasts 
exceedingly sweet instances of unwonted sanctity ; 
but they are profitless excruciations after all. Burn- 
ing a corn of wheat destroys it, to be sure, just as 



68 LIFE FOR LIFE. 

much as its falling into the ground does ; but the 
one is followed by a harvest of much fruit, the other 
abides, as it began, alone. It is not necessary for 
one immediately at conversion to look around for 
an instrument of suicide. Dj^ng to the world is 
not always dying out of it. God may want him to 
live a while yet. 

3. Here is disclosed the spirit underlying all true 
Christian fidelity. It is a will bent to meet God's 
will. We are to consent to die or live. We only 
long to apprehend that for which we have been 
apprehended of Clirist Jesus. 

The ancient seal inscription offers a very accept- 
able figure of this. An ox was represented as 
standing between an altar and a plow. The hus- 
bandman, on the one side, was presenting the yoke ; 
the priest, on the other, was only half-concealing 
the knife. There the patient beast remained waiting 
for the final signal. And the legend underneath 
was written: "Eeadyfor either." God calls only 
for our life to be surrendered to him ; he will take 
it or will spare it. We look at the fire and the fur- 
row, and yet make no choice. The inspired descrip- 
tion of a believer is simply this, a ^' living sacrifice.' 



LIFE FOR LIFE. g9 

4. Here is an explanation of repeated fail ares in 
religious effort. No seed has fallen into the ground 
and died. Some of you are discouraged over your 
classes. The children are not converted. They try 
your patience bitterly. You see no life springing 
up from the soil around you. Did you put any 
life in ? 

Take one verse of truth next Sabbath with vou 
into the school ; one that once helped you, taught 
you, comforted you ; one of the texts that have been 
specially blessed to your own soul in days gone by. 
Grive that to your children. Put your entire self 
into the use you make of it. Pat your intelligence 
into it ; study the meaning it bears. Put your self- 
denial into it ; for once give over all listlessness and 
repining. Put jour faith in it ; believe God is going 
to prosper it. Put your prayer in it ; let your lips 
be yet warm with the supplication you have lifted. 
Put your zeal in it ; let the ardor of your intensest 
longing glow on your cheek, and fairly flash from 
your eye. , Put your experience in it ; try to remember 
how you felt when those dear words came to you 
from Jesus. Put your hope in it ; go next day with 
the expectation you will be needed by a soul under 



70 LIFE FOR LIFE. 

convection. In a word, put your life in it; your 
life which rests in the Gospel ; center its force and 
fervor in the one wistful, yearning desire for that 
pupil's conversion. And God will give it to you ! 
He will give you life for life. 

5. Here is a counsel concernins; duty which in 
volves danger. " Hereby perceive we Christ's love, 
because he laid down his life for us ; and we ought 
to lay down our lives for the brethren." In the 
early hour of his first espousal to God, the believer 
gives himself entirely away, witli all the sacredness 
of devotion of a bride to her husband ; for richer or 
for poorer, in bloom or in wasting, for better or for 
worse, in life or in death. Feeble-minded sympathy 
once implored the brave-hearted Paul to keep out of 
peril. Eemember his courageous answer: "What 
mean ye to weep and to break mine heart ? for I am 
ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jeru- 
salem, for the name of the Lord Jesus f How little 
of the apostolic zeal there is in our willingness to 
undergo risk in saving souls ! We are afraid to wear 
out early. Think of Whitefield's noble words : "I 
am immortal till my work is done !" What is life, 
what is health, what is ease ? Souls are perishing 



LIFE FOR LIFE. 71 

for whom Christ died! An epidemic in a suspi- 
cious neio'hborhood drives us home in miserable 
cowardice and alarm, while for wealth men are 
tempting the winds of India and the miasmas of 
the tropics ! And what even if we perish ? That 
was what we bargained for in the outset. The 
recluses of an old Franciscan convent were sum- 
moned to go forth to minister to the sick and 
-dying, once when the plague was raging in the 
city. They were allotted one by one to the duty, 
and went without hesitation or reserve to their 
solemn task. Wlien each day was done, the man 
returned to an out-house within the inclosure, and 
if he could^ rang a bell to show he was alive. If 
that tolling monitor were silent at sun-dowm, then 
T,nother monk was dispatched for his relief if possi- 
ble, at any rate to continue the w^ork. They knew 
that their comrade had fallen. When the pestilence 
was finally stayed, it was found that twenty-four un- 
shrinking men had paid the penalty of their devo- 
tion. But think of it, how many lives of men had 
these lives saved ? In the measure of life for life, 
an unerring Eye struck the balance. 

6. Here is a lesson as to the ease of all useful 



72 LIFE FOR LIFE. 

ness. It is sin only in this world which is difficult 
Once bring a man into communion with the Say- 
iour, and he swings as naturally into doing good as 
a star into its orbit. 

You remember the motto on the pedestal of the 
Eddystone lighthouse — " To give light and save 
life." So out on the rugged shores of time each 
child of God is set The waves are around him, 
the eternal ocean breaks at his feet Storms are 
wild and midnights are gloomy. Yet, untremulous 
and undimmed, gleams that lantern on the rock, to 
give light that shall save life. There is nothing 
strange or strained in this. Poor mariners are drift- 
ing here and there far out to sea. They discern the 
faithfal glimmer, and are piloted in. Now it costs 
the lantern nothing more to do this than it does to 
live. For the very oil it consumes radiates the 
rays ; the beams the keeper trims it by are those 
that save the sailors. It does its duty when it is 
true to itself And that soul which grace has 
lighted, saves life when it keeps its life true. ^' He 
doth much," says old Thomas a Kempis, " who liveth 
welL" 



• ;-::^y^ 




Qj\Sq)QJ^S. 



VI. 



ManifeBtin^g Trutli. 




" £}/ manifestation of the truth comjnending ourselves to evBvy niarCs 
conscie)ice in the sight of God."" — 2 Cor. iv. 2. 

AUL, the apostle, was one of tlie greatest 
preachers that ever lived A burning elo- 
quence, that studied no rules of rhetoric and recog- 
nized no laws of logic, yet followed the rules 
unconsciously and obeyed the laws without mis- 
take, poured forth from his lips, until proud officers 
of the government bowed their heads in conviction, 
while the common people, half-crazed by a voice so 
supernatural in its utterance, brought forth garlands 
and oxen for sacrifice, exclaiming : " The gods be 
come down to us in the likeness of men !" 

In our text we have this famous preacher writing 
about preaching. He is at once explaining and ex- 
emplifying his power as an expert in the profession. 
Surelv it is worth our while to listen to him. 



74 MANIFESTING TRUTH. 

And the special fitness of this theme to Sunday- 
school teachers lies in the admitted fact that they 
are all lay-preachers, with small fixed congregations 
under their pastoral care. Ministers are only teach- 
ers with larger classes. 

You will find in the verse chosen for introduction 
to this sermon these three points, around which all 
that needs to be said can easily be grouped — the 
nature of a teacher's work ; the direction of his 
effort ; and the limit of his responsibility. 

I. The nature of the teacher's work He is to 
manifest the truth. Here are specified both his 
theme and his duty. 

1. His theme is '^ the truth." A general form of 
expression this, to be sure ; you will understand its 
meaning better if we draw out the particulars in- 
cluded, one by one. 

He is to present the Bible as the revelation of 
tru.th. "We are not left, as were some to whom 
Paul preached, to grope after God, if haply we may 
find him. The Word has been put in our hands. 
And this is all any Christian needs, no matter what 
may be the exigency. When Christ would foil the 
devil in the hour of temptation, he quoted Deuter- 



MANIFESTING TRUTH. 75 

onomy. "When Peter, on the day of Pentecost 
would convert the multitude, he expounded one of 
the Psalms. When Philip would lead the eunuch 
to the cross, he read him a chapter from Isaiah. 
And when Apollos was turning thousands of souls 
from error and sin, the secret of his success was 
disclosed in one fact : he was " mighty in the Scrip- 
tures." 

He is to present the Gospel as the system of truth. 
In giving us a New Testament, God told us what 
use to make of the Old. The history of the patri- 
archs, the songs of the Psalmist, the enactments of 
the law-giver, the proverbs of the wise king, the 
sublime predictions of the prophets, are all of won- 
derful interest. They stand like the guide-boards 
on Hebrew highways, each with an index-finger 
pointing toward a City of Eefuge. The one thing 
above all others in the Bible is the plan of redemp- 
tion. The children in our classes are under the 
curse of God's broken law. The great primal sin 
lies crushingly upon them. They are not sweet, 
innocent little creatures. What they want is the 
Gospel. You can not convert one of them with 
the story of Ahab, or of the Shunamite's child 



76 MANIFESTING TRUTH. 

These are useful to them only as leading them into 
the further study of truth. A trae teacher will 
never consider his duty done till he has told them 
the story of the cross. 

He is to present Jesus Christ as the embodiment 
of truth. In that awful hour of indecision, Pilate 
put the question : " What is truth?" It had already 
been answered by the Saviour who stood before 
him : " I am the way, the truth, and the life." The 
characteristic of our Christian faith is the presence 
in it of a personal Redeemer. This is what gives 
those four narratives of the Evangelists such power. 
There every child may read the story of a Man, 
divine and human, who lived and died for sinners. 
He sees that peerless Life, wandering homelessly 
over the hills of history, retiring to the mountains, 
walking on the lake, preaching to the multitudes, 
doing good wherever he moves. He becomes ac- 
quainted with Jesus. And as he recognizes him 
yet more and more frequently, he learns to love 
him. That Life grows dearer as it draws nearer, 
until it becomes the one image he looks for in the 
Scriptures. He grows like it, as he sees it the more 
clearly. And the true way to lead our pupils to the 



MANIFESTING TRUTH, 77 

foot of the cross is just this : Show them more and 
more of Jesus Christ. 

Here, then, is the teacher's and the preacher's 
theme. He is really to know nothing but Christ 
and him crucified. The Bible is to him like 
the inclosure within the outer curtains around the 
Tabernacle ; it is all solemn, precious, and sacred. 
The Gospel is to him like the many-covered struc- 
ture that invested the altar and the candlestick, 
within the consecrated pale. But as the chief glory 
of all these was found in the Shechinah on the 
inner mercy-seat, whose white light was what gave 
the entire edifice its grandeur and worth, so to him 
the presence of the living Jesus in the Gospel is 
what gives the word its power. 

2. His duty is to "manifest" the truth: that is, 
make the trath manifest. This also needs to be 
analyzed. 

He is to explain the truth until his pupils under- 
stand it. Not that he is to lift the vail from every 
mystery, or even reconcile every doctrine with hu- 
man i-eason. But he must show what God has 
really said, until even the youngest and the weakest 
can comprehend the meaning of the verses. It 



78 MANIFESTING TRUTH. 

causes people wonder sometimes to find a man like 
Simon Peter converted so expeditiously. The ex- 
planation is found in the fact of his intelligence. 
The ancient Jews taught their children in the 
Scriptures. Each Christian instructor is bound to 
study himself the truth he attempts to impart 

He is to confirm the truth until his pupils believe 
it. Here, however, his office extends no farther 
than merely to exhibit the proofs God has given. 
He is not so much set to prop a building likely to 
fall, as to make evident the fact that it needs no 
props, and is not going to fall. " Walk about Zion, 
and go round about her; tell the towers thereof; 
mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, 
that ye may tell it to the generation following." 

He is to apply the truth until his pupils feel it 
Here is the great duty of every instructor of chil- 
dren ; most neglected, yet niost indispensable. 
Every human heart has its peculiar ailment It 
needs a specific medicine for cure. This it neither 
can find for itself, nor will it take what is offered by 
another. A perverse will rejects every approach. 
Despite all that is said, a lining Gospel is not a 
comfortable thing to teach or to preach, because it 



MANIFESTING TRUTH. 79 

• 

is so uncomfortable a thing to receive. It is like 
the coal on Isaiah's lips, borne with because needful, 
but dreaded because on fire. Yet there is no alter- 
native. Children must be made to feel the truth as 
addressed to their own necessities for salvation. 
God has not rebuked sin in this world, but sins. 
He is offended not by an abstraction, but by what 
somebody has done. 

Here, then, is the entire duty of the teacher. It 
is the very heart of the Gospel laid upon the heart 
of the pupils. He takes the Bible, turns to the 
Gospel, and finds Christ. He informs the children's 
minds, convinces their judgments, then urges his 
direct way to their consciences. By manifestation 
of the truth he commends himself to every child's 
conscience in the sight of God. 

II. The direction of the teacher's effort comes 
next in order. And it is well to observe, just here, 
the choice phraseology of the apostle. He says, 
" commending ourselves to every man's conscience ;" 
not denouncing him, or attacking him rudely, but 
drawing him on gently, with all kindness. Old 
Doctor Miller was wont. to say to his students* 
^' The first element of grace in the pulpit is civility ^ 



80 MANIFESTING TRUTH, 

And if this is tiTie of men, how mnch more of 
children ! There is nothing so much in the way of 
any teachers success as sharpness or impatience. 
It only provokes ill- temper, and hinders the truth. 
When a child^s prejudice is awakened, he is lost 
for the time being. At the taking of Mansoul in 
the Holy War, my lord Prejudice fell and broke 
his leg. "I wish,'^ says the quaint Bunyan, "my 
lord had broken his neck." 

1. The faculty aimed at in all our manifestation 
of truth is conscience. The direction of every intel- 
ligent effort is toward that. It is not entertainment 
of the children for which we come together, but the 
salvation of their souls. And no hour of labor is 
worth recording which does not, in some form, reach 
the inevitable question of sin and salvation. This 
is right, and that is wrong ; do this, and reject that 
— ^that is the lesson for fifty-two Sabbaths in every 
year. 

2. The avenites of approach, however, to this 
faculty are manifold. Hence the inexhaustible 
variety in address. Those mostly in use are these 
three : the imagination, the reason, and the sensi- 
bilities. 



MANIFESTING TRUTH. 81 

The imagination loves a picture. And when all 
its vigor is invoked, the skillful teacher will find it 
easy to turn in the power of the truth he has illus- 
trated upon the conscience, for the will is off its 
guard. 

Nathan wrought David to a great pitch of excite- 
ment with the mere story of a poor man's ewe-lamb. 
Just in the moment of his intensest feeling, around 
came that long finger pointing at him, with the 
words : " Thou art the man !" Our Lord told Simon 
of a very interesting business transaction, and asked 
his opinion about it. The eager Pharisee answered 
with much enthusiasm. And then in an instant 
he found he had been judging his own case, and was 
convicted of sin before his own conscience. 

The reason looks for argument Just underneath, 
the most violent opposition, oftentimes, there is a 
secret misgiving of the human heart in favor of the 
truth. The conscience hears the strokes of argu- 
ment on the gates of the citadel, and makes ener- 
getic response with signs of surrender. 

Paul, before Felix, reasoned of rightousness, tem- 
perance, and a judgment to come. He hurried that 

agitated and guilty ruler on, in a chariot of burning 

4^ 



82 MANIFESTING TRUTH. 

logic, over the bounds of time, and far into the vista 
of eternity ; then the frightened debauchee could 
not help trembling. His conscience made him feel. 

The sensibilities expect fervency of appeal. At 
the present day, listlessness is by far the greatest 
hindrance either teachers or preacliers have to meet. 
So we all have to resort to every expedient to break 
up the apathy. When once the affections are 
touched, the conscience is exposed. This is the 
meaning of all those outgushings of tenderness 
found in the midst of the ancient prophecies. 

The weeping Jeremiah had a purpose even in his 
tears. Bzeldel turned his own tenderness to account. 
These faithful men had but one aim. They argued 
and pleaded, they presented a picture, they thun- 
dered a denunciation, they melted into appeal ; any- 
thing — anything that would win even one soul back 
to its allegiance. 

III. The limit of the teacher's responsibility is 
all that now remains to be noticed in the text " B}^ 
manifestation of the truth commending^ ourselves to 
every man's conscience in the sight of God.''' 

God sees us ! There is in this thought a counsel, 
then there is a caution, then tliere is a comfort. 



MANIFESTING TRUTH. 83 

1. The counsel is this: God sees us. Paul else- 
where develops this statement thus: ''With me it 
is a very small thing that I should be judged of 
you, or of man's judgment; yea, I judge not mine 
own self; for I know nothing of myself, yet am I 
not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the 
Lord." Here is the standard of every true teacher's 
fidelity. Lifting himself above all fear or feeling as 
to human censure or human praise, and passing- 
even beyond his own self-flatteries and self-distrust, 
he labors as "in the sight of God." The limit of 
Christian responsibility is not found in the estimate 
of men. 

2. The caution is this : God sees us. He does 
not have to wait and hear our report. Nor does he 
inquire what others say about us. He has personal 
cognizance of all we think or do. The petulant 
temper, the impatient word, the vexed reply, the 
ignorant exposition, the hasty appeal — he knew it 
all the time. Our listlessness in the grand work he 
has intrusted to us is all plain in his sight. 

3. The comfort is this : God sees us. Think of 
that touching refrain to one of our little hymns — 
" Even me !" When we seem to be working so 



84 MANIFESTING TRUTH, 

hard for stupid boys or ungrateful girls ; when we 
feel troubled at heart, yet toil on ; when we fail, 
even though we meant well ; when with unappre- 
ciated zeal we plod . on through the storm or the 
heat to our distant classes ; then, and always, God 
sees us ! I may do little enough, but if I try hon- 
estly to serve him, God sees me — " even me." 

It is time to end this Sermon. Yet the lessons I 
want to leave in the minds of us all are in strict 
accordance with the text. I desire by manifesta- 
tion of the truth to commend myself to every man's 
conscience in the sight of God. 

1. Now you see how solemn is the office of a 
Sunday-school teacher. It is simply the office of a 
minister of the Gospel. Who is sufficient for these 
things? "Whoso shall offend one of these little 
ones that believe in me, it vfere better for him that 
a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that 
he were drowned in the depth of the sea !" 

2. You see the need of a teacher's conversion. 
How can he teach the truth to whom it has never 
been manifested? How can he labor "in the sight 
of God" to whom God is a consuming fire? Now 
there is one thing that does not follow from this^ 



MANIFESTING TRUTH. 85 

and another thing that does. It does not follow 
that every unconverted man should cease teaching. 
It does follow that every one who is teaching 
should become immediately a converted man. 

8. You see how even helps may hinder in the 
process of instructing classes. Illustrations and 
arguments and appeals are all needful in "manifes- 
tation of the truth.'' But if one is betrayed into 
chasing up a ligure, or insisting on a debate, or con- 
tinuing an exhortation, until his work becomes the 
manifestation of a unanifestation^ he is certainly 
going to be in his own way. 

4. You see how popularity sometimes gets in the 
path, and blocks up usefulness. It is as easy to 
entertain children as it is grown people. When 
any teacher commends himself to the taste of story- 
loving scholars, it makes no difference hoAV many 
flock to his form. He will do them no good. Is 
this teaching them " in the sight of God" ? 

5. You see what a lesson is here also for the 
ministry of reconciliation to learn. Alas ! alas ! 
poor human weakness ! 



vn. 



A I^Ki(b4ik Spirit. 




*''■ Except ye "be converted^ and hecome as little children^ ye shall not fitter 
into the kingdom of heaven."" — ]Matthew xviii, 8. 



HERE is in the Scriptures no record of a 
Sunday-school. Mention is made of a 
theological seminary. Paul and Silas found at 
Philippi something very like a maternal association. 
And there was a union prayer-meeting once held 
on Mount Tabor. Some of our modern institu- 
tions, therefore, are not original in the churches. 
Here in this chapter I think we find the nearest 
approach to an account of a teacher's class. The 
Saviour gives the instruction, the twelve disciples 
are the. learners ; but the lesson they study is not 
presented in a book, but embodied in the person 
of a little live child. 

What if the process should be reversed in our 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. §7 

Sabbatli-schools once in a while, and the pupils be- 
come the teachers ? How would we relish being 
taught by one of the children ? Yet this is pre- 
cisely what our Lord here proposes for a perpetual 
exercise. We must become as little children ; and 
therefore children must be our unconscious in- 
structors as to what we are to attain. Highly priv- 
ileged, then, are those who have their monitors so 
constantly before them. 

In our present examination of this passage, let 
us first search out the doctrine ; then we can easily 
trace its practical results. 

I. The doctrine of the text must not be miscon- 
ceived. There is one thing it does not teach, and 
there is another thing it does. 

It does not teach the sinlessness of children. 
Christ says in this very chapter that he came to 
*'save" the "little ones" because they were "lost." 
No more certainly was Bartimeus the son of Timeus 
— a blind descendant of a blind father — than are all 
children the ruined offspring of a ruined race. Tra- 
dition, not reliable, tells us that the little boy, whom 
our Saviour called to him on that occasion, was the 
one who afterward came to be the martyr Ignatius, 



88 ^ CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 

tlirown in his old age to the wild beasts at Eome. 
That is the best which can be said of him ; and we 
do not know that even so mnch is true. Surely he 
was not offered as a model child. Our Saviour was 
the only model child that ever lived. Our text 
does not teach infant innocence. 

It does teach the excellence of a true child-spirit. 
It presents an ideal before our minds. The temper 
of a proper child in its father's house is the pattern 
we are to picture. Not childishness, but childlike- 
ness, is the condition of our entering the kingdom 
of heaven. And so our question will arise at once, 
What is this child-spirit ? We all have our theo- 
ries ; but subjecting, them to a careful, yet not very- 
extensive, analysis, I judge we should agree upon 
these four characteristics : contentment, obedience, 
aftectionateness, and trust You are accustomed 
sometimes, in your talks with your class, to give 
them the initials of your points of instruction, that 
they may remember it more easily. Your mnemonic 
now is found in First Samuel ii. 19. 

1. Contentment The apostle Paul says: "I 
have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
to be content" But he had to leaim it With 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 89 

children this is innate. It comes without discipline, 
and only deepens with experience. 

A child is perfectly content with its privileges in 
the home circle. Ask any member of your class, 
^' Whose little boy are yon?" and he will answer: 
" Father's." " And where do you live ?" He will 
tell you : ^' At home." Now he thinks you know 
all about him. There is only one father in the 
world, and there is no home but that father's house. 
He desires nothing beyond that for either rest or 
enjoyment. Disturb him, wound him, frighten him, 
and his earliest wish is : " Just take me home." 

A child is perfectly content with its restrictions 
under the home economy. He expects to be governed. 
Helpless, he just owns it, and is not humiliated. 
Ignorant, he just admits it, and is not ashamed. 
Weak, he just acknowledges it, and says: "Help 
me, for I can not go alone." There are others in the 
same family. He fully understands he must give 
them equal rights. He must adjust his liberties so 
as not to interfere with theirs. When he fails, he 
expects to be prompted and warned. The life he 
lives is a mere embodiment of the prayer : " Hold 
thou me up, and I shall be safe." 



90 ^ CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT, 

A child is perfectly content with the sanctions 
affixed to the home law. He loves approval, he fears 
punishment. He accepts the essential righteousness 
of both. He takes to the rewards best, but he 
knows when he merits the penalties. I asked my 
little girl once to choose her own punishment. To 
my unutterable dismay, she chose the toughest. 
She passed intuitive judgment on her offense. 

2. Obedience is the next characteristic of a true 
child-spirit. And as here is likely to be our great- 
est failure, so here needs to be our closest observa- 
tion. 

A child obeys his father unconsciously. He is 
not aware he is doing any thing remarkable. The 
parental will is law. He receives its mandates as 
a matter of course. He makes no virtue of neces- 
sity. He can not really understand the Hindoo 
doctrine of merit. He discusses no mysterious 
principles of family government. His subjection 
is native. When his father is at home, he expects 
to mind. 

A child obeys his father specifically. He plans 
to do the thing he is set to do. Casabianca stands 
on the burning deck, because there he was bidden 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 91 

to stand. It needs a man grown to become skillful 
enough to consider whether something else might 
not be substituted in the place of a commandment 
Children do not compound for one sin " they are 
inclined to," by damning another sin "they have 
no mind to." 

A child obeys his father unhesitatingly. A 
teacher, commenting on one of the petitions of the 
Lord's Prayer, asked her pupils around the class : 
" How is the will of God ' done in heaven' ?" One 
answered: "Cheerfully." Another said: "By all 
alike." A thhd added : " All the time." But the 
youngest little girl in the class, with a keen pene- 
tration, replied: "It is done without ashing any 
questions y 

3. Aflfectionateness is another characteristic of the 
true child-spirit. Some time when you are perus- 
ing the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, 
put in the place of the word " charity," in the fourth 
verse, the word " child," and see how it would read. 

The affectionateness of a child is remarkable foi 
the spontaneousness of its exercise. Half of our labor 
in this conventional world is wasted in simply 
graduating our favors to the ranks of recipients ; 



92 ^ GHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 

watcliing the effects they produce ; wondering what 
return they will bring. We must propiti ate one man's 
dislike ; we must keep down another man's pique. 
We reckon with much precision how much atten- 
tion will be needed to ingratiate ourselves with one 
family, and how much caution will have to be em- 
ployed to keep us from entanglement with another. 
Now, a child never calculates. He is thoroughly 
self-forgetful in his distribution of love. Thus his 
behavior delights by nothing so much as its natu- 
ralness. He is so artless in the surrender of all his 
powers of entertainment, that he will tell you all his 
stories at once, and sing you all the songs he knows, 
with a reckless exhaustion of his capital in a single 
effort. Thus he makes others happy without think- 
ing of it. He brightens a whole company without 
planning it beforehand, or remembering it after- 
ward. 

The affectionateness of a child is remarkable for 
the indiscriminateness of its bestowal. It believes in 
the doctrine: ''He that would have friends must 
show himself friendly." It cherishes no respect of 
persons. Distinctions of wealth, position, even of 
color and race, a child does not know how to deal 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 93 

with. How suggestive are the lessons we ought to 
receive from our own rebukes and mortifications on 
this point ! We try to teach our children choice in 
playmates ; but the moment our backs are turned, 
off they go with some wretched urchin from the 
next alley. Then we force them to play the aristo- 
crat ; but oh ! how mean it sounds, when we hap- 
pen to hear them through the casement explaining 
to the sad little girl with the ragged clothes 
how we have sagely warned them away from her. 
Neither seems to understand the case much. 
They asked the good Cecil's daughter what made 
every body love her, and she answered, with her 
peculiar kind of logic: "Because I love every 
body!" 

The affectionateness of a child is remarkable for 
the persistency of its endurance. It beareth all things, 
believeth all things, endureth all things; it never 
faileth. Breathe in the ear of a proper child even 
one word of suspicion, and mark how startled and 
yet how stubborn will be the assertion in reply. 
His fidelity is simply incorruptible. Did you never 
have one of the little girls in your class become 
uneasy before the time of dismissal? You told 



94 ^ CHILD-LIKE SFIBIT. 

her stories, you asked her questions, then you 
showed her pictures. Meantime she. continued so 
silent that you flattered yourself on your shrewd- 
ness in beguiling her attention; when suddenly 
looking you full in the face, right in the midst of 
your most enthusiastic endeavors, she said as calmly 
and as resolutely as a fate : "I want to go home and 
see my mother!" That tone carried conviction; 
you had to let her go. 

4. Trust is the remaining characteristic of this 
true child-spirit. You will find illustrations of this 
in a child's mode of thinking, method of reasoning, 
and manner of life. 

A child is always intelligent in its trust. A lady 
asked a little daughter of the missionary Judson: 
" Were you not afraid to journey so far over the 
ocean?" And the reply was : " Why, no, madam ; 
father prayed for us!" I think Ruskin, the great 
English critic, must have had a faith like this in his 
mind, when he penned those exquisite words of his : 
" The true unity of earthly creatures is their power 
and their peace ; not like the dead and cold peace 
of undisturbed stones and solitary mountains, but 
the living peace of trust, and the living power of 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. Q 



O 



support ; of hands that hold each other ^ and arc 'still ; 
the quietness of action determined, of spirit un- 
alarmed, of expectation unimpatient ; more beautiful 
than ever, when the rest is one of humility instead 
of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we 
have taken, but in the hand we hold." 

A child is always logical in its trust. You will 
mistake seriously if you imagine children continue 
their confidence blindly. They reason in mat- 
ters of the heart far more consistently often than 
maturer people do. The mind of a child is more 
logical than the mind of a man, in so far as his in- 
formation reaches ; for no swerving influence comes 
in to prevent the process. A twilight bird goes 
right on sailing into the shadow, with the mo- 
mentum it gains from flying in the sunshine. 
It passes under a dark archway with the impulse it 
takes from the lit flight it made toward it. And 
just so the faith of a child presses on unhesitatingly 
in the line of its convinced reason, and with all the 
force that reason has acquired. Do him a kind- 
ness, and a boy will believe you always a kind man. 
Help him once, and he will never hesitate to come 
to you for help. Learning his father from what he 



96 A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 

knows of him, he huriies along with a swift and 
fearless prediction, inferring with the instincts of a 
sure intuition what he does not know. 

A child is always tranquil in its trust There 
was once a monarch in Israel's realm, accustomed 
to put his experience to music, and sing the strains 
of affection that were too exuberant for prayer. 
Floating down the ages, he has sent us one Psalm, 
gentle as a Bethlehem hymn sung at a covenant 
cradle, yet manly enough in its utterance to become 
a " song of degrees" on the way to Jerusalem. And 
this is its burden : " Lord, my heart is not haughty, 
nor mine eyes lofty : neither do I exercise myself 
in great matters, or in things too high for me. 
Surely, I have behaved. and quieted myself as a 
child that is weaned of his mother." 

II. This seems to be the doctrine of the text ; let us 
now trace a few of its most prominent results. You 
perceive that the practical force it has for us turns 
on the fact that it has been made the condition of 
our salvation. These characteristics of a true 
child-spirit have been delineated at this length 
not for any purpose of mere interesting inqui- 
ry, but because each of them must be received 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 97 

into our experimented possession as a spiritual 
grace. 

1. Consider its bearing upon our intellechial pro- 
cesses. Many a man flatters himself i^ith a sweet 
consciousness of magnanimity, when he imagines 
that observers are pointing him out, and saying : 
There goes one, once a skeptic, who having deter- 
mined to put all systems to trial, has just now been 
investigating Christianity : he took up the evidences 
masterfully, he has given in his adhesion manfulhj^ 
and thiis shown his lofty fealty to his convictions ! 
Ah ! yes ; but our text does not talk of manhood, 
but of childhood. There is no child-spirit in this 
proud surrender to argument. A man needs con- 
version, not conviction alone. The Bible reverses 
human terms of counsel. We say to a child. Be a 
man ; Christ says to the man, Be a child. Hence 
he will " enter the kingdom" only when he studies 
with his faith as well as his intellect. 

2. Consider its bearing upon our formulas of belief 
A child's theology is frequently wiser for human 
need than a man's. It often comes to pass that 
when a mature intellect has been worrying itself 
into most discouraging confasion, it is startled by 

5 



98 ^ CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT, 

the keen penetration and almost oracular deliver- 
ance of an infant trust. What is God? Good 
Gillespie's prayer did the best it could for a defini- 
tion. " God is a spirit; infinite, eternal, unchange- 
able in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, 
goodness, and truth." Now you know what God 
is ! But you can not make much use of it." Ask 
a child what God is. You will get for an answer 
perhaps this — it takes it out of the prayer instead 
of the catechism: God is our Father who is in 
heaven. Now, for all practical uses, for all availa- 
bleness to deep experience of need, I soberly affirm, 
that little as this seems to say, it says more than 
the other does. Faith can not climb up on the 
north side of a doctrine in the shade. I believe in 
formulas for catechetical instruction with all my 
heart; but I think they ought to be explained 
more in the very warmth and light of the Scrip- 
tures. 

3. Consider its bearing upon our estimates of 
human greatness. You remember that the disciples 
had been disputing concerning superiority, when 
Jesus gave them this lesson. Possibly Peter plead 
for preeminence, and instanced the gift of the keys. 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 99 

Possibly Jolin called attention to his usual place at 
the table. Possibly Andrew begged to remind them 
he had led the first convert to Christ. Possibly 
James insisted on the prerogatives of his age. All 
this was met by the spectacle of a tranquil little 
boy, who possibly wondered why he was put into 
show. A child-spirit is keen enough to find, and 
generous enough to recognize, good everywhere. 
It loves all that love its father, all whom its father 
loves. It discovers no companionship so humble 
that it can not spend a gleefal hour in the light of 
it. All the world is in one family till ten years 
after people are born ; on the play-ground^ in the 
school-house, from the nurse's arms, to that dreadful 
hour when conventionalism steps in and tutors the 
unconscious democrats into lords and ladies. But 
half of the human race dies before the fifth year. 
When the millennium comes, you will find only 
children a hundred years, old. Please look at 
Zechariah viii. 5. 

4. Consider its bearing upon our tests of grace. 
We love to deal with subtle evidences of a change 
of heart. Here a plain one is profiered. Our text 
presents the final result, the completed picture, of 



100 ^ CHILD- LIKE SPIRIT, 

conversion : it consists in a child's temper and dis- 
position. Any one ought to know whether he pos- 
sesses that or not. He can find out. And if not, he 
is " become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." 
5. Consider its bearing upon advice to inquirers. 
You ought to have such constantly in your classes. 
Some of them completely invert the order of relation 
between belief and duty. Much of the difficulty 
they profess to find in the Bible is irrelevant in the 
matter of obligation, and entirely illogical to faith. 
Any sensible child is aware that its father's relation- 
ship by marriage, social connection in the commu- 
nity, or form of daily occupation, has nothing to do 
with the question of its own obedience to his com- 
mands. Told to go and serve him, it never pauses 
to inquire whether he is a citizen by birth or 
naturalization, or what amount of political influence 
he wields in the party, or how much money he 
owns. Yet this is just what human reason asserts 
its right to do over and over again. In perfect de- 
fiance of logic, inquirers will insist upon searching 
into the Trinity, before they take up repentance ; 
upon understanding the incarnation, before they 
will begin faith. They will worry over the decrees. 



A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. \Q\ 

when we urge holiness ; they will dispute about 
foreordination, when we press the necessity of 
prayer. Whereas not one of these stands in the 
way of the other. There is only one condition of 
salvation, and that is this child-spirit. " Take my 
yoke upon you, and learn of me;" but the taking 
of the yoke comes first, then the learning of the 
doctrine. " Be not children in understanding ; how- 
beit, in malice be ye children ; but in understanding 
be men." 

6. Consider its bearing upon our aims for attam- 
merit How far away are we as yet from this child- 
spirit ! " There remaineth yet very much land to 
be possessed." Do you ask how this may be 
reached ? Pnly one direction is needfaL Look at 
your own children, in your class or in your home. 
Your lesson is before you. What you would have 
your child he- to you^ that he you yourself to God! 
You will not accomplish that alone. You had 
better ask for help at once. 

Quiet, Lord, my fro ward heart ; 

Make me teachable and mild; 
Upright, simple, free from art ; 

Make me as a weaned child : 



102 ^ CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT, 

From distrust and envy free, 
Pleased with all that pleaseth thee I 

As a little child relies 

On a care beyond his own, 

Knows he's neither strong nor wise, 
Eears to stir a step alone ; 

Let me thus with thee abide, 

As my Father, G-uard, and G-uide I 









VIIL 



tSoV^ jkxxovo^. 




'Thine arrows stick fast in mey — Psalm xxxtih. 2. 

ERE David seems to have reference to cer- 
tain afflictive dispensations, under which, he 
was at the time borne down. His explanation of 
their pertinency and purpose is, that he had been 
doing wrong, and God was rebuking him. And 
there was in this discipline no caprice of the Divine 
displeasure; it was the usual method of drawing 
back a sinful heart to its allegiance. These troubles 
of his are called arrows ; for they pierced him like 
the shafts of an archer, shot at a fugitive soldier, 
not to slay him, but to bring him to a stand. 

This is the figure. In another Psalm the picture 
is presented in full. In those days monarchs were 
wont to lead forth their own armies to battle, and 
were themselves armed for the fray. And here the 



104 GOD'S ARROWS. 

inspired address is direct to the Captain of our sal- 
vation: ''Thy throne, God, is forever and ever! 
The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Gird 
thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy 
glory and thy majesty; and in thy majesty ride 
prosperously, because of truth and meekness and 
righteousness ; and thy right hand shall teach thee 
terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart 
of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under 
thee.'' 

The general meaning we gather from this is, 
that the AEROWS of God are the means he uses 
of every kind to bring his rebellious subjects to 
terms. 

Now we accept the complaint that many Sunday- 
school teachers make : the children in their classes 
are not converted; the daily instructions in the 
Bible do not sink into their hearts : the truth seems 
to glide over, glance off, and effects no permanent 
lodgment. 

Our reply to it is — ^you want more arrows. Then 
comes the question — how can we get them ? And 
this sermon is intended to give that question an 
answer. 



GOD'S ARROWS. 105 

I. You may look for arrows always in the field 
of Divine Peoyidence. 

The ancients used to say that, having fashioned 
the universe, the great Architect sent it adrift on 
the sea of his eternal purpose, thinking no more of 
its cargo or its course — as a shipwright finishes a 
vessel,, and, after the perilous launch is over, never 
is at pains to watch for its voyages. But the Chris- 
tian idea rebukes and corrects the heathen. God is 
the pilot as well as the constructor. He holds 
every second cause and every instrument in positive 
subordination to his intelligent will. And in the 
sphere of his religious influences, especially, where 
now it most concerns us to follow him, as if to 
insist upon his own sovereignty, and keep every 
human mind from presumptuous interference, it 
seems to have been his intention that many of the 
most bright and shining lights in the militant church 
should be brought into the kingdom in a strange 
way. Some special providence arrested them sud- 
denly. 

An infidel was sailing upon a river. A storm 
arose, a water-spout dashed over the boat, the man 
-was drifted out to sea, clinging to the oars. Finally 

5^* 



106 GOnS ARROWS, 

he was picked up by a vessel, itself swept from its 
moorings, wath broken cable, and in danger of 
wreck. Thus was Yanderkemp converted. 

A minister made an open-air appointment for a 
preaching service. Some young men and boys 
undertook to disturb the meeting. One of them, 
the most nimble and dextrous, broke his ankle in 
trying to kick a foot-ball in the good man's face. 
That laid him on his bed, and brought the preacher 
to see him. Thus Morgan Howell was converted. 

President Edwards turned from church one Lord's 
day, intending to spend the time in sleep and seclu- 
sion. He took from the library at random an old 
book without any name on the back. It proved to 
be-a Bible, and he opened it to find, in 1 Timothy 
i. 17, the instrument of his conviction. 

Now Grod ordered all these events, as plainly as 
he ordered the sleepless night of Ahasuerus, or the 
coming of Aaron from Egypt to meet Moses. He 
used them for their specific end, precisely as he did 
the crucifixion wonders for the Italian centurion, 
the opening of the Philippian prison for the jailer, 
or the journey to Damascus for Saul. And now, 
the loss of property, the death of friends, the 



GOD'S ARROWS. 107 

thwarting of all ambition ; sickness, defamation, or 
want — all these are Grod's arrows. 

Any incident in a child's life may be used to point 
a counsel, to fasten a truth, to impress a lesson. 

II. You may look for arrows in the exercise of 
Christian Ingenuity. 

The power exerted in the true conversion of any 
soul is t'hat of the Holy Spirit, and the instrument 
is the truth. We have only to bring the truth close 
to a soul, and then rely on the Holy Spirit. But 
there is in this process a wide margin left for human 
tact. Three forms of effort may be mentioned at 
this point, any one of which you can employ with 
the members of your classes : personal conversation, 
religious literature, and the power of a holy life. 

1. Personal conversation is the manliest way of 
doing good. Gentleness is the very essence of 
piety ; tenderness always goes hand in hand with 
tact. You will be interested in the record made 
of the lamented Hewitson. "His ministry," says 
his biographer, "was eminently an earnest one; it 
was not the earnestness of the flesh — not vehemence, 
nor noise, nor physical fervor — ^but the deep, calm, 
solemn earnestness of the spirit ; there was no scold- 



108 GOD'S ARROWS. 

ing, no impatience, no angry upbraiding ; but the 
tenderest pity ; be besought and warned with tears ; 
this was his unanswerable argument.'' 

Now see how beautifully he wrought this disposi- 
tion out into his conversations. One time he was 
passing along through the village, and saw a young 
woman standing at the door with her child in her 
arms. He stopped to speak with her. In his usual- 
grave but gentle manner, he remarked : '' How safe 
that babe feels when you hold it so ! The believer 
is just as safe in the arms of Jesus." At another 
time he met a member of his congregation whom 
he had not yet visited. In response to his kind 
inquiry, she told him she lived in "such a place, " in 
the room up-stairs." Then he continued: ''Ah! 
well ; I hope you invite the Lord Jesus with you ; 
he used to live in an upper room sometimes at Jeru- 
salem, and loved to meet disciples there." 

There is no end to the illustration we could offer 
you here. A wife told her husband she " trembled 
for" him ; the expression fell deeply into his heart. 
A merchant mentioned to his partner that he tad 
set u]3 a family altar that morning ; God blessed 
that mere word to his good. Lady Huntington 



GOB'S ARROWS: 109 

pressed on one of her servants the consideration of 
eternal things; he appeared to pay no attention, 
and she saw no reward ; but the gardener heard the 
conversation through a hole in the wall, and became 
a man of prayer. Payson asked some young men 
to let him read them a hymn ; and his voice left 
them in penitent tears. Forty years ago, two trav- 
elers stopped their horses at a brook for water ; as 
they looked in each other's faces, one spoke to the 
other concerning the welfare of his soul. They 
parted strangers, as they met ; but the words of love 
found a lodgment in the heart on which they fell. 
So Champion became a Christian, a minister, and a 
missionary. He never knew his benefactor, till in a 
volume sen^ him in Afi^ica from this country he 
saw and recognized James Bayard Taylor. Oh ! 
what a meeting those two had, when next they 
stood face to face (as you and I sing), " Beyond, be- 
yond the river" ! 

2. Religious literature^ likewise, may be used in 
doing good. It is not always easy for one to over- 
come a constitutional reluctance in regard to speak- 
ing on religious subjects. Nor does every one 
always know what to say. A relief is found here, 



110 GOD'S ARROWS. 

in both, branclies of the embarrassment, in the use of 
tracts, treatises, slips cut from periodicals, cards 
with texts or hj^mns printed on them, or volumes 
of larger size loaned for perusal. The power of a 
Christian press can not be overrated in this reading 
age. And God has wonderfully increased our fa- 
cilities in these past years of the Church's history. 

A man on the ferry-boat tore a tract in pieces, in 
sheer spite at the pious zeal that presented it to 
him. But one fragment clung to his glove ; and on 
it was the awful word — Eternity ; that word which 
our English Bibles utter but once, saving it in sol- 
emn grandeur to describe what "the High and 
Holy One inhabiteth ;" that arrow of God pierced 
his conscience and brought him to the foot of the 
cross. 

The mother of Colonel Gardiner put a devotional 
book in his box when he went from home ; that 
saved his soul. The father of the dissolute Baxter 
gave him a tract, which was the instrument in his 
conversion. Then Baxter wrote the " Call to the 
Unconverted;" this Doddridge read and was con- 
victed of sin. Then Doddridge wrote the "Eise 
and Progress of Religion in the Soul;" this was 



GOUS ARROWS. \\\ 

what gave Wilberforce his earliest impressions. 
Then Wilberforce wrote the "Practical View of 
Christianit}' ;" that was made by the Spirit of 
God effectual to Legh Eichmond's conversion. 
Then Legh Eichmond wrote the " Dairyman's 
Danghter," the noblest tract in the world, now 
printed in a hundred tongues ! 

3. A Jioly life^ however, is the most effectual 
power for doing good. In this case the man him- 
self seems in a Scripture sense to become an arrow. 
" He hath made thj mouth like a sharp sword ; in 
the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made 
me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid 
me." 

A readier went to hear Whitefield preach, and 
came away penitent. "I meant to break your 
head," said he, " but by the grace of Grod you have 
broken my heart." A poor invalid came home to 
an ungodly father's house to die ; her meek sub- 
mission, her patient endurance, her joyous hope, 
subdued his rebellion ; and she expired expecting 
to see him again. A modest tradesman upheld his 
family devotion, though it tried all the fibers of his 
courage ; a clerk who lodged with him was won by 



112 - GOD'S ARROWS. 

the spectacle to begin a better life. A wife, on the 
way home from church, ridiciiled the awkwardness 
of the preacher ; looking Tip in her husband's face, 
she discovered his eyes filling with tears : his emo- 
tion melted her heart. A peeress of England had a 
little class of ignorant women, whom she was wont 
to teach in the Scriptures ; a blacksmith in the 
neighborhood, a notorious villain, swore he would 
break up the school, and so one day violently 
forced his way in. She went faithfully forward 
in her work, and God touched his hidden sensi- 
bilities with the purity of her purpose and the 
indefatigableness of her zeal, and he became her 
efficient ally. An infidel came to a pastor to con- 
verse anxiously concerning his soul ; "I could 
always bear sermons," said he ; "I was ball-proof 
to argument, but I could never endure the Chris- 
tian life of my wife." 

Now, all this may seem very common-place to 
you ; yet you may rest assured that this is the best 
means of usefulness you can have with your classes. 
Efforts at influencing souls, in any other direction 
than this, are like arrows shot from the long-bow ; 
their force and their reach will depend upon the 



GOD'S ARROWS. 113 

strength of the sinew that strains the string. But 
truth from a holy life is like an arrow from the 
cross-bow ; it will penetrate with equal power, who- 
ever sends it flying. 

Now we reach the application — where the ser- 
mon really begins. 

1. You see that God actually desires the conver- 
sion of souls. The air is fall of arrows. The silent 
heavens, and the mute earth, the storm and the 
sunshine, every agency in the u.niverse has been 
impressed into service to bring souls to the cross. 
The kingdom of providence is subordinate to the 
kingdom of grace. 

2. You see how wide is the field of Christian 
•usefulness. Among all these quivers of arrows it 
does seem as if every soldier might find some shafts 
which would just fit his bow, and would certainly 
stick in the mark. 

3. You see how unfortunate an inactive teacher 
is. He has no arroios^ and his bow is unstrung. 
Oliver Cromwell found twelve silver statues in 
Yorkminster cathedral ; suddenly he asked, "Who 
are those expensive fellows up there ?"' They told 
him they were the disciples of Christ. '' Ah ! let 



114 GOD'S ARROWS. 

them be taken down and melted up/' said the old 
Puritan, " then they, like Christ, will go about doing 
good!" 

4. You see the need of constant study of the 
entire Bible. That is what all the good arrows 
come from. When the gifted authoress of "English 
Hearts and Hands " saw that strange man on the 
banks of the river about to commit suicide, she 
saved his life and his soul by reading gently within 
his hearing Psalm xlvi 4. How did she happen 
to think of it ? When the father of little Agnes, 
out in the winter burial-ground, saw the great, soft 
snow-flakes falling on her grave, how did he happen 
to think of Psalm xci. 4 ? We must be familiar 
with all God has said. 

5. You see the encouragement there is for many 
who are unlearned They can be, like ApoUos, 
" mighty in the Scriptures," and God will follow 
his own truth with force. "Not by might, nor by 
power, but by ray Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 

" The gentle heart that thinks with pain 
It scarce can lowliest tasks fulfill ; 
And if it dared its life to scan, 

"Would ask for pathway low and still ; 



GOD'S ARROWS. 115 

Often such gentle heart is brought 
To act with power beyond its thought ; 
For Grod, through ways they have not known, 
Will lead his own !" 

6. Yon see what it -means, and what to do, if yon 
are ever hit by one of these arrows of God. Job 
was. David was. Panl was. It means that God 
desires yoa to come nearer to him, and then he will 
extract it. 

7. Yon see how terrible a futnre they mnst have 
who dare the arrows of God. They tell us that a 
wounded stag plunges into the deepest thickets, but 
still the shaft of the hunter clings by its barb ; he 
seeks rest, but the point rankles ; he lies by the 
fountain, but finds no peace. Oh ! the picture of a 
transfixed soul, suffering and restless, wandering 
around in the world of the lost, without even the 
blessed privilege of being permitted to die ! 




IX. 



Home Meatlx 



en. 



"i<br ye ha/oe the poor with you always; and whensoever ye will^ ye may 
do them good^ — Mark xrv. 7. 




HE tendency of onr times is* toward cen- 
tralization. The means of rapid transpor- 
tation, and the facilities for quick communication, 
on the water and on the land, have drawn away 
business activities from many of the old channels, 
and more or less gathered them around certain great 
marts. Our population is setting toward the large 
cities and towns. Laborers from foreign lands, and 
rustic mechanics and tradesmen from our own, are 
caught by the romantic pictures of profit and plenty, 
and are hurrying into the crowded houses and the 
noisy streets of the nearest metropolis. 

And, on the other hand, with the easy interchange, 
the families from the town find their summer transit 



ROME HEATHEN. 117 

qnickly made into the villages and hamlets ; and 
the customs they bring with them are urging their 
way into the yielding habits of the more unsophis- 
ticated neighborhoods, molding the growing genera- 
tions to quite other impulses and tastes, ambitions 
and moralities, than those their fathers taught them 
to cherish. The country, in return for its best thrift 
and energy, which it generously pours into the city, 
receives constantly new themes of thought, new 
schemes of enterprise, and new theories of life, some 
of which, to say thejeast, are of questionable value. 

This growing centripetal force in our land we are 
all able to mark. Some deplore it. All admit it. 
And now that the reciprocity of interest and influ- 
ence between the rural and the metropolitan districts 
is recognized — now that the mutual p^ssures and 
impressions are beginning to be felt, each in turn 
sobers under the thought that it has inevitably to 
deal for itself with the mightiest question of the 
age : How shall our centers of powers be rendered 
as Christian as they are attractive, as harmless as 
they are potent ? 

.►I. It may as well be avowed here as anywhere, 
for we shall come to it, that this is not, as an object 



1 18 HOME HEATHER 

of appeal, a popular theme. Choose any city, and 
yon will find that the mission Sunday-schools are 
sustained by only a meager moiety of the evangelical 
churches. Do you ask why this is so ? There are 
two reasons for it, at least. 

1. One of them is the nearness of the objects of bene- 
volence. Distance lends enchantment to foreign mis- 
sions. Patriotism makes some allowance for even 
the closeness of Western churches and colleges in 
our own land. But the poor are here under our 
very eye. Descriptions of degradation and suffering 
are spiritless, because we meet the destitute con- 
stantly and contiguously. We fairly touch them 
as we pass. Business men ought to know this, and 
yet it rather injures the cause to tell them of it. Eyes 
look, out upon them as they hurry down town, or 
pour over the North river and East river, from 
windows behind which there is what no pen can 
describe. Immortal souls jostle them on the pave- 
ment, crowd them on the street cars, throng them 
at the ferries, and stare at them from all the comers : 
a great mass of living, sentient humanity, each indi- 
vidual with his own circle surrounding, purpose 
urging, and destiny coming. 



HOME HE A THEN, 119 

Here they are ; and the question is, how shall we 
help them? They are within reach, and even now 
accessible to any effort, the vicions and the depraved 
close by the intelligent and the moral, the ignorant 
almost housed with the educated, the foreign with 
the home-born. And they are increasing with 
rapidity unparalleled all the time. But every pastor 
will bear me witness how difficult it is to move 
Christian people toward them. 

The dramatic power of poverty and vice in a 
picture is lost in a fact. I have seen men stand 
suffused and weeping before the painting of a Beg- 
gar Boy, who passed a hundred boys begging, on 
their way to the exhibition, and never thought of 
tears. Now a hook through a man's back, as he 
whirls on a lofty post in Hindostan, has a weird 
horror in it that makes even the purse-strings 
shudder. But when a man, with ,the iron in his 
soul, his heart wrung for his children that starve or 
that swear, that are naked or are thieves, presents 
himself, want becomes tame and common-place. It 
loses romance when we find he lives down by the 
Ferries, over by the Navy Yard, or across by the 
Dry Dock. 



120 HOME HEATHEK 

2. Another reason for the nnpopTilarity of this 
canse is fonnd in the inveterate repugnance of the 
human heart to admit the poor and wretched to brother - 
hood under any system of things. Many of our no- 
blest Christians find themselves turning away to 
work more agreeable than that among the destitute 
and the vicious ; and indeed it does seem unwel- 
come. These people do grow presuming, some- 
times, when you are kind to them. They have^so 
little sympathy that they hardly know how to treat 
it, and there is much that shocks one's sensibilities 
in the beginning of the effort. I can go from where 
I now sit in my study writing, and in half an hour 
can lead you into liouses where neither the air nor 
the sunshine of heaven ever comes. Scores of fami- 
lies are under almost the same roof, not one of 
which ever hears a prayer. No Bible is there, no 
Sabbath there, no Christian instruction there. The 
whole duty of the day is done happily, when poor 
squalid existence has been prolonged, by protracted 
ingenuities of labor and crime, through its hungry 
hours. Vice is fostered, sin is strengthened in its 
power over every new generation that grows up in 
the infamy. 



HOME HE A THEN. 121 

What a school is this for a child ! Two of our 
mission school children sat out on the dark, ricketty 
stairs, the other night, till two o'clock, waiting for 
their drunken father to go to bed, so that they might 
creep securely into their corner, from which he had 
driven them with missiles. Think of that little 
ten-year old boy and seven-year old girl, in the gang- 
way six hours in a January night, here in the City 
of Churches ! Human beings live and die in filth, 
drunkenness, ignorance, and misery, untold and 
indescribable. And I live, and so do yau, within 
ear-shot of their wailing, and never know who it is 
that cries 1 

I ask again, what are we going to do with these 
home heathen ? They are ready to meet the minis- 
trations of the Gospel. They will take anything 
you will give them kindly, from the loaves and 
fishes of a little lad, up to the sermon of a disciple. 
It may seem to you hopeless to labor for them, but 
you have no right to despair of the truth. 

I have knelt to pray by a bedside, when the awful 
reek of the floor fairly disturbed me at devotion. 
I have ministered at the burial of the dead when 
men sat in the same room, with covered heads, curi- 

6 



122 HOME HE A THEN. 

ously wonderiDg what I was trying to do. I have 
read and prayed and exhorted at the funeral of a 
child, and then taken the cofl&n in my own hands 
and borne it from the room. I have said my hur- 
ried words of instruction to one who was dying, 
amid the vilest clatter from the streets, and the 
rankest odors from the alleys ; and spoken of Jesus 
and the cross to those who, I had every reason to 
believe, never had heard his name except in an 
oath. And then I have fallen back, single-handed, 
on my faith, and implored a good, merciful Father, 
who made these creatures, that he would interpose, 
even in the depth of their ignorance and hardness, 
for the salvation of a soul that I knew was just 
crossing the dark river alone. And yet I am not a 
city missionary, only a pastor, and my experience 
is not very strange nor unusual. • 

What will you do for these people? Oh, for the 
sake of your brother's soul, and for the sake of a 
great common humanity, answer this question for 
me ! Look at these men, women, and children, one 
by one. Take every soul up, as you would take 
jewels up, if you were crown-making. Christ is 
crown-making; are not you? Look at its flaws, 



HOME HEATHEN. 123 

not to censure or reject, bnt to help and restore. 
No man is lost utterly, no matter how burned, or 
how bronzed, or how blackened; no man can be 
lost, while there is but one fair line across his fore- 
head on which the name of Jesus can be written ! 
Gather him up in your arms like a bruised child. 
Say in your heart, " my God ! I might be here, 
but for thy grace I" 

Ah me ! men and brethren, I call to mind those 
finest words of great commendation, which Eliphaz 
gave to the suffering Job ; I want to hear such, if 
by and by I must suffer: ^'Behold thou hast in- 
structed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak 
hands; thy words have upholden him that was 
falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees." 

Here are the poor and the vicious, the homeless 
and the hunted children of misfortune. God is 
asking us the world over, "What shall the strong do 
for the weak ? The earth rocks. Institutions are 
breaking. Life seems a breath. Fortunes fail. 
Over all sits God calmly, saying, " Be watchful, and 
strengthen the things that remain!" 

II. The question of doing good among all the 
miscellaneous masses of every great community, is 



124 HOME HEATHEN. 

emban-assed with three complications. And so 
every scheme has to move loosely, and have room 
to yield and distend almost at pleasure. What 
seems exceedingly plain work requires all the 
genius of a master to compass even the least suc- 
cess in doing. 

1. One of these is poverty : mere want of food, 
want of fire, want of garments, want of everything 
that helps to make humanity human. It does very 
little good to pray with a man, or read to him about 
Bartimeus, or tell him the story of Bethany or 
Bethlehem, while he is gaunt with famine, or des- 
perate under the cries of his barefooted children. 
I know a family that, last evening when it began 
to rain, had no coal to burn, nor food to eat, and 
did not know a living source of help. If you have 
nothing but tracts, my impression is that you need 
not go there to-day. You will have to do some- 
thing very like giving money, or work, long before 

that man or any of his family will be ready for 
baptism. 

Now I know this is common-place. I suppose 

some will hardly listen to me as I talk of dollars 

and cents in this connection. I cannot reason coolly 



HOME HEATHEN. 125 

with a Christian who rails out against the eternal call 
for practical help. Let him go and reason with the 
men themselves. Come, I will invite you. I had 
a man here in my study the other day. He had 
been sick a month. He was a furrier by trade. 
He had four children living. I buried one for him 
once ; that is the way he came to know me. He 
could live in ordinary times. His sickness, how- 
ever, had thrown him in arrears. He was not able 
to rise or stand. He halted twice on the stair- way. 
I heard him, and opened the door. He came in to 
tell me his trouble. His furniture was on the side- 
walk. He could not remove it from there, without 
paying his rent — four dollars. He had found 
another house, but he could not go in without pay- 
ing in advance two dollars. And he could not 
move his little store of goods without paying a 
drayman one dollar more. He was a Eoman 
Catholic. 

Ah, now, what a chance for conversion ! He had 
come unsolicited to my study, and I had him fairly. 
Now, if you had been within reach, how I would 
have invited you to reason with him! For, you 
see, I had ^^ Kirwan's Letters" close by; somebody 



126 HOME HEATHEN. 

once gave me a " Key to Heaven ;'' Oummings lias 
a fine chapter on Antichrist, I remember ; what an 
argument we might have had with him ! Oh, it is 
too serious to be sarcastic about ! Christian brother, 
you know better than this. The first thing to do 
for that poor fellow was to lend him seven dollars. 
Lend him ? Yes, better than give, under such cir- 
cumstances, for it saves his self-respect. If he can, 
he will return it — and you can lend it to the next 
man ; if not, it is only giving, you see, after all — 
and he hopes to be able yet. 

2. Another complication is found in the fact that 
very Tnany who are to he reckoned in these mixed mul- 
titudes are not vicious. In one day's visit, you will 
find, quite likely, a goodly number of old-country 
people, and many of them are members of Christian 
churches abroad ; yet in this land, finding no spir- 
itual home at first, they have fallen away into neg- 
lect of all ordinances and institutions of the Gospel. 
Business life and laborious toil hurry them through 
the week, amid the vast throngs and vigorous com- 
petitions of this crowded metropolis, and on the 
Sabbath they clamor for rest and recreation. Fam- 
ilies, even from Puritan New England, are found 



HOME HEATHEN. 127 

likewise, who, reared in the circles of strictest and 
most virtuous associations, come here into closest 
seclusion. They discover that the social lines are 
drawn tensely; the rates of pew-rent are, in all 
acceptable congregations, exceedingly high; and, 
compared with all their previous village conge- 
niality and neighborliness, the general welcome is 
cold and uninviting to any further intimacy. For 
awhile they make a compromise ; but little by little 
they glide away from their former habits and con- 
victions, become worldly like all the rest, and at 
last they are lost in the obscurity of the throng — 
lost to usefulness, if not to faith. 

Bear in mind these persons may be poor or may 
not Quite likely they are. At any rate, they live 
among the poor. They find their homes on less 
fashionable streets. They go to the common amuse- 
ments ; they put the music of the Central Park in 
the place of the Philharmonic Concerts ; they seek 
the cemeteries instead of the sanctnary on the Lord's 
Day. They mark the hurrying thousands of all 
classes in the community, and yet feel that they 
must fight their own battles. So they grow on 
fighting. 



128 HOME HEATHEN. 

You imagine, perhaps, that conversation will 
have great benefits to reach in their case. You 
would like to talk with them. You may be very 
ingenious, and subtle, and profound; but I warn 
you they will give you defeat in the argument. 
They have thought these mattei^ over a great while ; 
and that, too, when every faculty of their minds 
was quickened and excited under the pressure of 
scenes of starvation, and sickness, and degradation, 
that they have experienced or witnessed. Social 
forms and conventional restrictions have vanished, 
in their estimation, into thin air, before the great 
humanity that agitates and sways them. They 
have their theories, not vaguely defined, as you will 
discover yours are, but hard, clear, sharply-cut, and 
thrusting. 

Above all, they will worry you with the " Tu 
quoque^ argument. It is a favorite with them. 
You will say, '' You ought to do this or that ;" they 
will answer, "And youT^ They think you are 
human; they know they are. And they assert, 
most recklessly their equality before God, and free- 
dom from social estimates of every form. 

They will quote Scripture at you, and give it 



HOME HEA THEN. 129 " 

strange turns of sentiment. You rebuke them for 
breaking the Sabbath; they will point to you a 
feeble little child, fairly gaunt for air, and tell you 
they want to have her go to Greenwood alive a few 
times before they take her there in a cofl&n. You 
tell them that decency requires them to cling to 
the faith of their fathers ; and they will reply it is 
difficult to sing even the Lord's song in Babylon. 
You complain because they are not seen in the 
sanctuary ; and they- will ask you if it is wise for 
a poor widow to run hopelessly in debt just to put 
her two mites in the treasury. 

Are these people all right ? No ; not half of 
them. Are they amiable or proper-tempered? I 
suspect not. I am afraid you would not be, if you 
were to argue with them. You must soothe. Ah, 
I tell you beforehand, you will hear more bold 
heterodoxy than ever you heard before, if you at- 
tempt to argue with many of the mixed multitude. 
And now 1 tell you likewise, upon my faith, and 
with a rebuked and humble heart, you will hear 
more truth too. 

8. The other complication, to which I alluded, is 
the entangled condition of all laivs concerning the vela- 

6* 



130 HOME HEATHEN, 

tions of the poor and vicious to the opulent and strong. 
Men will complain passionately to you that they 
cannpt be good and honest, if they would ; but 
they ask you to help them. They implore you to 
interfere between them and what seems a great 
impending hammer of society that simply beats 
and beats them down. And it is when talking 
about this that they grow wildest. They handle 
things rather loosely. They say " God " in a way 
that makes you shudder sometimes, and sometimes 
\^^ep. They believe he is on their side. They 
think he is their fast friend. If you press them 
with the fact that they do not serve him, they will 
either deny it, and turn their appeal away from 
you to High Heaven, or they will stand at bay 
suddenly, and retort on you the almost savagely 
abrupt question, " It you never had food nor father, 
school nor Bible, church nor home, where would 
you have been better than I am ?'' 

They charge much of their vice on others, and 
in many cases you will be saddened with the 
plausibleness of the plea. When a man is drunken 
and violent, and you shame him and reproach him, 
and then he tells you in reply that he is weak 



HOME HEATHEN. 131 

there, and lie knows it ; and then he swears with 
oaths that make the earth and air almost tremble, 
how he went forth in the morning with a deter- 
mined heart to be sober, and a friend, licensed by 
the laws you live under, and the administrators of 
which you yourself helped to elect, tempted him 
with a taunt on the corner, and rung a glass in his 
ear because he knew the week's wages had just 
come in ; and so, poor fellow, he fell again. And 
then, when he says it is no use for him to try to be 
honest and decent, for all the powers that be are 
leagued against him, and the whole world would 
be willing to ruin him, body and soul, in the hell 
of liquor, for the sake of the money he would need 
to spend getting as drunk as he is now — what are 
you going to say ? 

Pity the poor rather than shun them. Be con- 
siderate. Thoughtlessness kills them by scores. 
One of Dr. Spencer's parishioners met him hur- 
riedly urging his way down the street one day ; his 
lips were set, and there was something strange in 
that gray eye: "How are you to-day, Doctor?" 
he said, pleasantly. He waked as from a dream, 
and replied soberly. " I am mad T It was a new 



132 HOME HEATHEN. 

word for a mild, true-hearted Christian ; but he 
waited, and with a deep, earnest voice, went on : "I 
found a widow standing by her goods thrown in 
the street; she could not pay the month's rent; 
the landlord turned her out ; and one of her chil- 
dren is going to die ; and that man is a member of 
my church ! I told her to take her things back 
again. I am on my way to see him !" I think I 
should like to have been present at that interview. 
It would have been worth seeing, that Christian 
rebuke from the indignant pastor. 

My purpose is gained in this appeal; if it only 
leads my fellow-workers to greater zeal. I do not 
here propose policieSy but I pray you read my text 
over again: "Ye have tbe poor with you always; 
whensoever ye will, ye may do them good." I can- 
not be at rest while the blessed Faith seems back- 
ward or apathetic. The " cry of the human " forces 
itself in upon me. 

While I sat here, in my quiet study, the upper 
room of my home, many months ago — my sermon 
just completed at the close of a day, folded nicely, 
laid labeled away, the evening coming on with long, 
beautiful shadows, tracing weird shapes on the 



HOME HEATHEN, 133 

carpet — suddenly my serene hour of rest was broken 
in upon by the slow step of an unknown person 
climbing the stairs. I waited quite a while, the 
sound nearing the door, as if some one was timid, or 
hesitated, or lame. Then there fell a heavy burden 
against the panels. I was startled, and went imme- 
diately to ascertain the meaning of the intrusion. 
There on the landing lay the form of one I had 
known in far-gone years — a broken, sick, worn ine- 
briate, evidently sober, but exhausted even to faint- 
ing. He was in the last stages of a decline. His 
strength failed on the very threshold of my apart- 
ment. I took the poor, thin, light burden up in 
my hands, and brought him in, and laid him down 
on my sofa. He panted so painfully for breath, 
that I was actually frightened. I thought he might 
die there with me alone. I gave him water, and 
fanned him with my sermon — surely it never did a 
better service than that. 

By and by he got his breath and his utterance; 
bat spoke painfully, as he did his errand : — 

^" I have come up here — very much troubled — I want 
—^ou to take vie — ly the hand — and just lead me — 
like a little child — to Jesus ! " 



134 HOME HEATHEN. 

Do I need to tell you how I tried my best with 
that poor fellow that remembered hour ? But that 
is not my point What I want to say is, that since 
then I have never been at rest. The great, tried, 
feeble, dying world keeps driving in through every 
crevice of my study the wistful request — Will you 
lead me, like a little child, to Jesus ! 





X. 



Braixnn^ ILi^lxtTiin^, 



''^And lie shall go 'before him in the spirit and power of Elias^ to turn tJie 
hearts of the fathers to the children.'''' —Ljjkb 1. 17, 




OIENCE tells us that the best defense 
against lightning in a thunder-storm is 
found, not in defiance of it, but in a silent discharge 
of it. Gro right toward it fearlessly with a pointed 
platina wire, and we shall learn that it will follow 
a fixed law of harmless dispersion. 

Is there any way by which the power of one of 
Grod's curses can be drawn, . so as to avert the terri- 
ble stroke of divine wrath ? Let us see. 

This text .refers us directly back to the final ut- 
terance of the Old Testament. There are four 
books in the Bible which end with a curse : Mala- 
chi, Lamentations, Isaiah, and Ecclesiastes. The 
Hebrew scribes were always accustomed to repeat 
the verse just before the last in these cases, so as tO: 



136 DRAWING LIGHTNING. 

close the reading with something besides a male- 
diction. It is not easy to see how this helps the 
matter in the present instance; for the preceding 
prediction seems to have been uttered merely to 
introduce the warning. And, perhaps, it is just as 
profitable to believe that the best way to avoid the 
judgments of God is to guard carefully against 
deserving them. 

After the last seer under the ancient dispensation 
had spoken the words which the Evangelist quotes, 
the heavens were closed for four hundred years. 
Jehovah had not another message to send. His 
people had offended him. Justice comes almost 
fiercely forth, and bars the gate of revelation, be- 
cause children are despised. And not until four 
centuries of silence had given time for repentance 
would those bolts be withdrawn. Even then it is 
a little child who advances to turn the massive 
key. History wanders sadly in confusion among 
the captivities and Maccabean usurpations. Only 
an infant can join the Testaments. Luke is the 
next man to Malachi. The sternest of all Israel's 
prophets reappears in the sternest of all heralds to 
the church. "For all the prophets and the law 



DRA WING LIGHTNING. 137 

prophesied until John; and if ye will receive it, 
this is Elias which was for to come." 

The wonderful suggestiveness of this passage, 
however, is found in its theme. A wild threat, 
four hundred years old, is suddenly removed in a 
flash of benediction. The curse in Malachi is 
omitted in Luke — ^the lightning is drawn. The 
Grospel fulfills the law when it accepts children. 
God receives the fathers into favor and communion 
again when their hearts are turned to their off- 
spring. • 

This is the doctrine of the text. Hence, I pre- 
sent to you now, as a legitimate subject of conside- 
ration, the work of the Sunday-school organization ; 
it discharges harmlessly the Old Testament maledic- 
tions^ and it hecomes the instrument of fidflling the 
benedictions of the New, It is the world's helper and 
the church's servant. You will see this with all 
clearness, if you examine who are the subjects of 
its effort, and what it proposes to do with them. 

I. The subjects of Sunday-school effort are, of 
course, understood to be the young of our race. 
Oftentimes these are the least noticed, and the last 
noticed, of all classes of beings with souls. And 



138 DRAWING LIGHTNING. 

yet there is no truth more settled than that Civili- 
zation^ Chivalry and Christianity reach their highest 
culmination in the caring for children. 

1. Civilization is traced by marking the progress 
of history. We may read the records of human 
life, profoundly probing for the motives of men, 
analyzing conventional laws, rules, and customs, 
until at last we venture to say, from a wide induc- 
tion of particulars, we are beginning to learn the 
steps of advancement among the nations. And 
now it has come to be confessed by the wisest phi- 
losophers that the clearest evidence of a lofty civil- 
ization for any people in any age or clime, is found 
in the provisions which are made for little children. 
Savages bind up their infants with afflictive thongs 
of bark, as the most expeditious disposal to be made 
of them. Never till a land has leisure, never till a 
nation has refinement, never till most of the steps 
upward have been taken in the way toward ex- 
alted attainment, does there come even one look 
of appreciation or sympathy for these "feeble 
folk" of society more than the merest necessities 
of existence or the exigencies of convenience re- 
quire. 



DRA WING LIGHTNING. 139 

He who, with kind heart, and subtle ingenuity 
of invention, sits down at his desk to illuminate a 
juvenile volume with an extraordinary frontispiece, 
or who toils at his bench to construct a mechanical 
toy for a little child, is in one sense both the pro- 
duct and the type of the truest and the highest 
civilized humanity. 

2. Chivalry has always claimed to have gone 
somewhat beyond what mere civilization requires. 
It has presented as the supreme excellence of man- 
hood, that it recognize woman's worth, that it labor 
to secure the amelioration of woman's lot, that it 
freely yield to woman's wish every equalization of 
privilege, and that it have respect to woman's weak- 
ness with all indulgence and affection. It will ac- 
cept no apology for a lack in this generous form of 
consideration. It rejects with instinctive repug- 
nance and horror all the learning of Socrates, all 
his wisdom, all his morality ; because it discovers 
that he positively sold his own wife at a price. 
Chivalry is accustomed to say, Let woman cease to 
be both a slave and a toy ; give her the place she 
deserves in the social realm ; let her become reg- 
nant as God has made her regal ; then the summit 



140 DRAWING LIGHTNING. 

will be reached, and society will have advanced to 
its highest meridian. 

But when we are ready to accept this as final, 
and actually begin to honor the sex we deem no- 
blest, suddenly we discover there is that which the 
honored sex honors in its own behalf. Look up as 
we ought at woman, and we find woman not look- 
ing down upon us, but looking upward still. 
Crown a mother, and she will put the diadem on 
the head of her boy, and bid you observe how like 
a little prince he wears it. Give her a deed of un- 
told wealth, and she will indorse it for her children 
before she puts it in the safe. She tells you there 
is something higher than herself With quicker 
intuition and profounder wisdom she stands ready 
to teach you that " the child is father to the man." 
To respect woman and not respect children is 
an impossibility. As society becomes vicious, 
women are professedly adored ; but homes are 
broken, and children are considered nuisances. 
And if an oracle can ever instruct a devotee at all, 
then chivalry ought to have certainly learned by 
this time from the voice of woman herself, that no 
sentiment of devotion to her can be lofty till it be- 



DRAWING LIGHTNING. 141 

gins to honor and love her children as she honors 
and loves them. 

3. Christianity enters at this point to accept and 
repeat the lesson. Up to the moment in which a 
Dation Lecomes evangelized, all reference to the 
young springs not from interest in them, but only 
from the interest which the community has in its 
own well-being. Christianity takes up children in 
its arms, as Christ did, for childhood's sake. 
Within a few years, some in this land of Gospel 
light have come near enough to the Sun of Eight- 
eousness to learn that he desires to shine most be- 
nignantly upon the little ones, and wants us to do 
as they do in some eastern lands with infants, hurry 
them out at birth where the first ray of the day- 
spring from on high may visit them. When wealth 
has multiplied and industry has prospered, when 
science has increased and education become easy, 
at last the Sunday-school has reached all ade- 
quate recognition, and the best minds are laboring 
in its behalf Music, literature, and the mechani- 
cal arts are under steady tribute. *' The hearts of 
the fathers" are in some measure turned to the 
children. 



142 -^^^ WING LIGHTNING. 

And now I am ready to say that herein lies the 
glory of the American Church ; we are foremost in 
the Sunday-school work. If some great catas- 
trophe of nature were to bury ns under, as a sec- 
ond Hercalaneum or Pompeii, and the antiquarians 
of a far-future generation were to unearth our 
records, found, as they would be, in the market and 
in the sanctuary, in the dwelling and in the street, 
in the metropolitan centers and in the rural diver- 
gencies, all along and over the country — ^it would 
not be the proud structures of our architects, nor 
the fine paintings of our artists ; it would not be 
the princely mansions of our opulent merchants, 
the thronged libraries, the crowded marts, the curi- 
ous museums ; it would not be the triumphs of our 
engineering skill, nor our inventions of ingenious 
tools, nor even the gatherings of highest learning 
in our universities and academies ; not one nor all 
of these would be our best evidence of civilization ; 
not one would settle the question of either our ad- 
vancement in real chivalry or Christianity. Our 
reputation would have to stand or fall upon the 
relics which would remain, to show before that en- 
lightened age what we had been doing for children 



DRA WING LIGHTNING, 143 

« 

in this. It is to be hoped that they would fall upon 
a toy-shop or a depository of juvenile books. 

There can really be no denial of the affirmation, 
that the highest reach of a Christian civilization is 
presented in a Christmas-tree at an anniversary of 
a Sunday-school. A most excellent study for any 
thoughtful nian is that tall evergreen, with its non- 
descript fruit shining upon it, and the Bethlehem 
carol stirring its branches ! 

II. Thus much, then, concerning children as the 
subjects of our labor. Let us now inquire concern- 
ing the nature of the work we desire and propose 
to do in their behalf This is no less than to seek 
outj to educate^ and to redeem children. 

1. To seek them out — it may, possibly, make 
one smile to speak of seeking out children in neigh- 
borhoods like ours, where, in all* likelihood, there 
are more quivers and more arrows in each quiver 
than anywhere else in the known world. Children 
positively swarm wherever you go. The cities are 
crowded ; the unhealthiest localities and the unfit- 
test households generally the most so. And the 
villages likewise are thronged. '^ Happy is the 
people that is in such a case." 



144 DRA WING LIGHTNING. 

But this involves new responsibility. Half these 
children die before five years of age. Not far from 
one in seven is buried before it ever sees its anni- 
versary birthday. What a waste, if God sends 
them only as he sends the great tree-loads of spring- 
blossoms for the comparatively little fruit ! But he 
does not. He cares for the least of them, though 
he gives the living multitude to the world with all 
munificence of profusion. Some he takes home 
early, and himself teaches. Some he leaves here 
for you and me to teach. All these need to be in- 
terested and attracted. In the verse fi:*om Malachi, 
which the angel quotes only partially in our text, it 
is intimated that the hearts of the children need to 
be turned to their fathers also. They must be sought 
out and brought under the power of the Gospel. 
They never will be, until Christians become more 
Christ-like. Brazilian rivers are full of diamonds ; 
what then ? The costliest jewels will only drift 
down the current and be lost in the sands, unless 
somebody goes to crown-making, and gathers them 
carefully up. 

2. To educate them, then, becomes another part 
of this work. And I make bold to say that there 



DRA WING LIGHTNING, 145 

is no one agency which is doing more in this direc- 
tion than the Snnday-school. This will appear if 
you consider the class of instructors, the lesson they 
inculcate, the text-book they use, and the spirit b}^ 
which they are actuated. 

Who are the teachers in our Sunday-schools? In- 
quire them out in turn. Any pastor or saperin- 
tendent can inform you. The best zeal and the 
truest efficiency of the church at large are there. 
God has wonderfully quickened the hearts of his 
people latterly in this respect. The chief impres- 
sion left by the- last mighty revival in our land was 
concerning the power of individual effort on the 
part of the lay membership in our Christian con 
gregations. 

What is the lesson they are trying to impart ? You 
know very well that the questions which pass for 
study and answer between instructors and pupils 
in these classes are those that concern the deepest 
needs and the loftiest aspirations of the human soul. 
The tremendous problems of sin and salvation are 
the staple of close converse. If you draw nigh, so 
as to overhear any recitation, you will listen only 
to the story of the cross told over and over again. 

7 



146 I>R^ WING LIGHTNING. 

now by the parable, now by the history, now by 
the type. What a discipline is this for stimulating 
and directing thought, with such teachers and such 
themes ! How the intelligence is awakened, how 
the mind is educated — educed^ drawn out — into the 
exercise of its best powers ! 

What is the text-hook they are accustomed to employ ? 
The Bible alone. The multitudinous appliances 
for help have increased wonderfully during the last 
few years, and yet all of them are only intended to 
magnify and explain the Word of God. The aug- 
mented and oftentimes mysterious .influence of a 
Sunday-school lesson has this simple explanation : 
it is as if God spoke, not man. The truth which is 
brought to bear upon the heart and understanding 
of the children is immediately authenticated and 
accompanied by a vital force from heaven itself. 
The arguments for everything just, honest, pure, 
and of good report, are not drawn from a mere 
code of morals, or backed by mere considerations 
of expediency ; they are quickened by the unseen 
energy of inspiration which pervades them. 

What is the spirit hy luhich they are actuated? 
Look in for a moment, in imagination, upon a work- 



DRAWING LIGHTNING. I47 

ing and effective SiTiiday-scliool. Mark one pecu- 
liarity in attitude. The pupil, in the intensity of 
his interest, has leaned forward from the bench ; and 
the instructor, in the absorption of his subject^ has 
bent forward from the chair ; and that circle of 
foreheads almost touch each other. We, who are 
a little enthusiastic in such matters, call that char- 
acteristic posture the " Sunday-school Arch." You 
never find it except at the seats of the most intelli- 
gent and faithful teachers. Eemember that they 
have studied that lesson most carefully, and that 
their whole hearts are in the duty they are doing. 
Eemember that they have wrestled in earnest prayer, 
on bended knees, before their Lord that very morn- 
ing, pleading for all needed assistance. Then bear 
in mind that their pupils love them, honor them, 
and now listen with all the inquisitiveness of kindled 
desire to learn something new and fresh. And 
the eyes fill sometimes with the su.ffusion of ten- 
der appeal and affectionate exhortation. Ah ! is 
not this the place in which to educate a soul for 
God? 

3. To redeem children, however, is the main end. 
And I put the question with all earnestness to any 



148 DRAWING LIGHTKIXG. 

thouglitful and candid man : Wliere will you find a 
plan which has more hopefulness in it than this ? 
God converts souls ; our office is to lead them up 
under the force of the means of grace. And is 
there not in this Sunday-school Arch a fitting sym- 
bol of the Divine promise, the very bow of the 
ancient covenant, bending over these 3^oung immor- 
tals, with its benediction of peace ? Keep a child 
there, in that focus of intense spiritual heat and 
light, aglow for a term of years. Let him grow up 
under it. Let that immature form become manlier, 
and perforce straighten somewhat with tallness ; and 
that other form that has been bending with eager- 
ness, begin to stoop with age ; and still let the 
patient process be continued and never relax until 
the place is changed, and the pupil becomes 
a teacher, and, beginning with a little group, 
makes and tends a new arch of his own ; what 
will be the result of all this pressure of training 
in the truth ? Go ask church-records what it has 
been, Eead the names of those who come from 
the Sabbath-classes into communion and mem- 
bership 

My Christian friend, how much are you doing in 



DRAWING LIGHTNING. 



149 



this day of Gospel privilege to bring the hearts of 
fathers back to their children ? Do we need another 
prophet, with his hairy raiment and his leathern 
girdle, to come forth from the wilderness ? 








XL 

'* Search the Scriptures''— ^ow^ v. 39. 

HAT vessel is always liable to go awreck 
whose pilot does not know whether he is 
steering for a light-house, or a light in a house. 

In searching the Scriptures, the earliest point to 
be settled is this : For what are we to look ? And 
the answer we need is furnished in the declarations 
of the Bible itself: ''He that hath an ear, let him 
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." 

The motto of the mystics was : " The Scriptures 
mean all that they can be made to mean." The 
Eabbins said there was not a letter, nor an ajoex of 
a letter, which did not contain whole mountains 
of meaning. And so they made anagrams, and 
counted the characters, and estimated the lines, 
and read the language backward. Putting every- 



INTELLIGENT STUDY. \^\ 

thing in, of course they drew out marvels and 
wonders without limit 

What we want to know is just that, and nothing 
more, which the Spirit of God intended to say. 
And so all the counsels on this subject are simpli- 
fied at once. 

I. Search the Scriptures to ascertain the exact 
words they employ. Inaccuracy in the citation of 
proof-texts is as needless as it is unfortunate. For 
an instructor of children, this fault is of prime im- 
portance. ^' Thou which teaches another, teachest 
thou not thyself?" 

1. Be sure you are quoting that lohich is in the 
Scriptures. The Governor of Tennessee had no 
right to put in his message the line, " Now is the 
winter of our discontent," as the utterance of "the 
prophet." It is not in the Bible that you will find 
the sentimental figure of Sterne, "The Lord tem- 
pereth the wind to the shorn lamb." 

2. Be sure you are quoting the passage as it is 
in the Scriptures. No man would ever find in the 
Bible the absurd jumble he sometimes opens his 
prayer with : "0 Lord ! we Avould piit our hand on 
our mouth, and our mouth in the dust, and cry 



152 INTELLIGENT STUDY. 

out, Unclean, unclean, God be merciful to us, sin- 
ners." Children sit with wonderment under a con- 
fusion of acts and images so incongruous and im- 
possible. Four texts are spoiled to construct this 
nonsense. . It was the afflicted Job that laid his 
hand on his mouth. It was the yoke-bearino: 
youth in Lamentations that put his (not Job's) 
mouth in the dust It was the leper in Leviticus 
that was directed to put a covering on his upper 
lip (not his hand on his mouth), and cry, L^nclean. 
It was the publican (with hands beating his breast, 
and out of the dust altogether, in the temple) who 
said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. This is no 
waj' to quote God's language, when speaking to 
him. 

II. Search the Scriptures to learn the precise 
facts they record. Plain, unlettered men are often- 
times the best expositors in the historic part of the 
Bibla Limited by no set theories or pet creeds, 
they simply ask what the sacred writer has in- 
tended to saj'. They never spring upon you any 
deliverances of " Mother Church," nor do they stun 
you with learned citations from "the Fathers." 
They claim no ^' inner light" more than other peo- 



IXTELLIGEXT STUDY. 153 

pie, nor do tliey throw themselves back upon pe- 
culiar "spiritual insight." 

1. Believe what the Bible says. Moses declares 
that the waters of the Eed Sea were divided, stand- 
ing as a wall on either side ; it is all folly, there- 
fore, to seek for some wind, or some tide, to cause 
a natural reflux, of which the tribes took advan- 
tage, and got across. When Christ told Peter to 
cast in his hook for a fish, that in its mouth he 
might find silver for tribute, there is no propriety 
in declaring he only meant to have the disciple go 
and sell the fish and bring him the money. 

2. Eeject what the Bible does not say. One 
of the old commentators read in the sacred history 
that Abraham in his later years married Ketui^ah. 
Knowing that the name Ketarah meant ''sweet 
odor," and remembering that sweet odors were used 
as a symbol of spiritual graces, he drew fi:'om this 
intricate combination of fragments of learning a 
most felicitous thought; namely, that before he 
died, the father of the faithfal became superemi- 
nently sanctified. Whereas the simple-minded 
reader would only understand from the record that 
the good patriarch took another wife in his old age, 



454 INTELLIGENT STUD Y. 

which in many respects is quite a different thing 
from growth in grace. 

3. Be your own judge as to what the Bible does, 
or does not, say. The volume before us is put 
freely in our hands. The grand old Protestant 
sentiment yet holds the minds of the people ; every 
man's conscience is the ultimate tribunal of de- 
cision concerning truth. '^No prophecy of the 
Scripture is of any private interpretation ; for the 
prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; 
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost." The Book of God has been 
called "the god of books." And in nothing does 
the majesty of its divinity appear so indisputably 
as in its simplicity and clearness to an enlightened 
and devout mind. Neander's motto was: "It is 
the heart that makes the theologian." 

III. Search the Scriptures to understand the doc- 
trines they teach. The true rule for exposition is, 
in a word, this : " Comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual." We must not cite, and rest upon, 
isolated verses, but follow the general sense of 
Scripture, in all our studies of doctrinal truth. 
This is what the apostle means when he says: 



INTELLIGENT STUDY. I55 

*^ Let US prophesy according to tlie pro2)ortion of 
faith." 

1. Explain one passage by another. This is the 
value of marginal referenced. In the sixteenth 
Psalm, David says : "My flesh shall rest in hope; 
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt 
tliou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." 
Now what possible right had our translators to be- 
gin those words — Holy One — with a capital letter? 
We look over in the second chapter of the Acts, 
and there we find Peter expounding this Psalm as 
a prediction concerning, not David, but the Messiah. 
"He spake of the resurrection of Christ." 

2. Limit one passage by another. " Answer not 
a fool according to his folly," must meet mid-way 
with " Answer a fool according to his folly." " Bear 
ye one another's burdens" does not rebuke those 
who accept "Let every man bear his own burden." 
There is always some judicious stand which may 
be taken in contrasting declarations like these. 
God is said to repent that he made man ; and yet 
we are told that he is not a man that he should lie, 
neither the son of man that he should repent. We 
are told tliat he hardened Pharaoh's heart, and yet 



156 INTELLIGENT STUDY. 

tliaf Pliaraoli hardened his own heart. In the Psalm 
we are informed that darkness is God's secret place ; 
and in the Epistle to Timotliy, that he dwelleth in 
light. Moses says, in one verse, that Jehovah spake 
with him face to face ; and in another, that no man 
could see God's face and live. There is no contra- 
diction in these ap|)arent oppositions of statement. 
A candid study will find a middle ground between 
them, sensible and safe. 

3. Interpret each passage by a common under- 
standing of all. The Word of God never contra- 
dicts the evidence of our senses, nor advocates what 
is impossible, nor outrages the dictates of decency, 
nor crosses our intuitive moral judgments. 

It never contradicts the evidence of our senses. " If 
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous 
do?" All the decrees of a thousand councils of 
Trent can not make me believe that the bread at 
Communion is real flesh. It will not do to quote 
to me — "This is my body." I w^ould sooner ac- 
knowledge that that verse reads — " This is not my 
body," than that the bread is not bread. For if it 
comes to a faith in senses, there they stand four to 
one. I would rather doubt my seeing the text, 



INTELLIGENT STUD Y. 157 

tlian doubt my seeing, smelling, feeling, and 
tasting tlie bread. If I can not know bread and 
wine, when I eat and drink, how can I know any 
thing ? 

It never advocates ivhat is impossible. Isaiah never 
walked barefoot three years, just to show how the 
Egyptians would have to walk barefoot. Ezekiel 
never lay thirteen months upon his left side, look- 
ing point blank into a cooking- utensil set on edge, 
as if playing at a siege of Jerusalem. If the prin- 
ciple of ecstasy does not explain these visions, 
there is a principle somewhere that does. 

It never outrages the dictates of decency, ' Yoltaire 
might have spared himself all the labor of ridicul- 
ing Hosea for having to marry an adulterous wife ; 
and all the sympathy he wasted on him for having 
no better success the second trial. God never put 
his prophets at doing any such Vvackedness. 

It never crosses our intuitive moral judgments. In- 
spiration does not teach that one is to hate his father 
and mother in order to become a disciple of Christ. 
Nor is cutting off one's right hand, or plucking out 
his right eye, a fixed means of grace. Self-mutila- 
tion will not keep one out of hell. These passages 



158 INTELLIGENT STUDY, 

are to be explained so as not to contradict our 
moral sense of right and wrong. 

lY. Search the Scriptures to discover the Christ 
they reveal. This is, indeed, the first meaning of 
the text as our Lord uttered it. '' Search the Scrip- 
tures, for in them jq think ye have eternal life. 
And they are they which testify of me." 

1. The history is full of Christ. Study will sur- 
prise you with the disclosure that it was the same 
Person, in whose bosom John lay at the Last Sup- 
per, who wrestled with Jacob out in the wood be- 
yond Penuel. He who was crucified on Calvary 
was typed in the lad that his father bound to the 
pile on MoriaL The foot of the cross was planted 
on the exact sjoot where Abraham offered the ram 
in the place of released Isaac. Think of Joseph's 
story ; what a transcript of Christ's ! 

2. The ritual is full of Christ. Do you remem- 
ber that beautiful incident in the Holy War, where 
Prince Immanuel made a feast? After the eating 
was over, he entertained the town with some curious 
riddles, made upon King Shaddai, and upon Im- 
manuel his son, and upon his wars and doings with 
Mansoul. Some of these riddles ''Immanuel ex- 



INTELLIGENT STUDY. I59 

pounded unto them, and, oh, how they were light- 
ened ! They saw what they never saw before ; 
they could not have thought that such rarities could 
have been couched in so few and such ordinary 
words. Yea, they gathered that the things them- 
selves were a kind of portraiture, and that of Im- 
manuel himself For when they read in the scheme 
where the riddles were writ, and looked in the face 
of the Prince, things looked so like one to the 
other, that Mansoul could not forbear but say, 
This is the Lamb, this is the Sacrifice, this is the 
Rock, this is the Door, and this is the Way ; with 
a e'reat manv other thino-s more." 

O 1/ < — 

3. The ijrojjiiecies are full of Christ One seer 
foretold his birth, another his deatli, and all of them 
saw his day afar off, and were oiad. Never vras 
child so longed for as that infant of Bethlehem, 
which the world found no room for when he came. 
On the battlements of Old Testament historj^ there 
seems ever one anxious face at least, joeering into 
the darkness and waiting for the dawn. The best 
description of Jesus that Andrew could bring to 
Simon Peter was this : " We have found him of 
whom Moses and the prophets d.id write." 



160 INTELLIGENT STUDY. 

4. The Gospels are fall of Christ. All the inci- 
dents of those four narratives are rightly under- 
stood, only when grouped around that strange life 
they exhibit. You remember the story of the 
Spanish artist, who painted the Lord's Supper with 
matchless perfection. He dashed his brush impa- 
tiently over the canvas, as he overheard a bystander 
applauding the wine shining so inimitably well in 
the goblets. "Is it possible," he exclaimed, "that 
any one should see that picture, and think of any 
thing but the face of Jesus?" 

5. The epistles are full of Christ. Doctrinal truth 
is the food of the renewed soul. There shine out 
the exceeding great and precious promises. Yet 
how few reach the extent of their meaning! I 
have somewhere read of a silver egg, once prepared 
for a present to a Saxon queen. Open the silver by 
a secret spring, and there was discovered a yolk of 
gold. JFind a spring in the gold, and at the touch 
it likewise flew open, and there was a beautiful 
bird. Press the wings of the bird, and in its breast 
was found a crown, jeweled and radiant. And 
even within the crown, upheld by a spring like the 
rest, was a ring of diamond, fitted to the finger of 



161 

the princess herself. Oh ! how many a promise 
there is within a promise in the Scriptures, the 
silver around the gold, the gold around the jewels ! 
Yet how few of God's children ever find their way 
far enough among the springs to discover the crown 
of his rejoicing, or the ring of his covenant of 
peace ! 

It is only by your favor now that I linger to state 
a few closing reflections. 

1. Intelligence is the very foundation of piety. 
Truth gives life. It is no shame not to know ; it 
is only a shame not to learn. To be ignorant is 
a misfortune ; to remain ignorant is a fault. 

2. Intelligence is the essential condition of success. 
Truth converts the soul. Inspii^ation is what gives 
truth its force. The best teachers are " mighty in 
the Scriptures." There is their power. 

3. Intelligence is the measure of attainment 
Thessalonica was a large and powerful city ; Berea 
was a little village. The inhabitants of the one 
place were wealthy and educated ; of the other, poor 
and illiterate. But this is the testimony : " These 
Bereans were more noble than those in Thessa- 
lonica, in that they received the Word with all readi- 



162 



INTELLIGEXT STUDY, 



ness, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those 
thino-s were so." 

4. Intelligence is the ansiver to prayer. Truth 
comes from God. Martin Luther said : ^' To pray 
well is to study well." Even the Psalmist needed 
the help : " Open thou mine eyes, that I may be- 
hold wondi'ous things out of thy Law !" 








XII 
@n(^ Believe. 

" Be not afraid ; only 'believe!''' — ^Maek v. 86. 

HEEE were those who one time asked the 
Saviour, '^ What shall we do that we might 
woriv the works of God?" To this he replied, 
^' This is the work of God, that ye believe on him 
whom he hath sent." 

The issue, then, between God and men is nar- 
rowed down to this — "only believe." "He that 
believeth on the Son of God is not condemned; 
but he that believeth not is condemned already, be- 
cause he hath not beheved in the name of the only- 
begotten Son of God." Hence, the true and only 
answer to an inquiring sinner is, "Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

No man, however, can be an inquirer except 
under the influence of the Holy Ghost. " No man 



164 ONLY BELIEVE. 

can come to Christ except the Father draw him." 
If he comes asking, that proves that he comes 
drawn. Hence the folly of those who profess to 
be waiting for the Spirit in order to believe. They 
have the Spirit ; they are "resisting him, instead of 
waiting for him, this very moment. And hence 
the correction, also, of all false views of those who 
deem it perilous to urge on every soul the duty of 
immediate and believing surrender tq Christ ; that 
is the Spirit's work, it is admitted ; but this is the 
man's duty. He is under the power of the Spirit from 
the moment he asks the loay. And we are bound to 
bid him believe and be saved. If he cannot under- 
stand it, we must explain it. This is what I now 
am attempting to do. 

L Let us inquire, first, the meaning of the Scrip- 
tural term. 

1. When the Bible speaks of faith, it sometimes 
means mere belief in facts. This kind of faith is 
necessary, in a certain sense, to salvation ; for he 
that comes to Jesus must believe that he is. The 
facts of the Saviour's life are to be received in that 
way. But this is not saving faith at all. For we 
read that even the devils "believe and tremble." 



OXL Y BELIE YE. \ 65 

They know all about the history of the Prince of 
Salvation. 

2. Again, faith sometimes means that conviction 
of the understanding which results fi'om proofs laid 
before it, or arguments adduced. This is that 
which Thomas had, when, being asked to put his 
hand in the side of his Lord, and his finger in the 
prints of the nails, he was constrained by the evi- 
dence to admit the reality of the resurrection. 
^' Because thou hast seen," said Jesus to him, ^' thou 
hast believed." But this is not saving faith; for 
our Lord immediately added, " Blessed are they 
that have not seen, and yet have believed." 

3. And sometimes the Bible means the faith of 
miracles. This was a peculiar gift, bestowed by 
Christ upon his immediate followers, in order that 
they might attest their Divine mission by using 
Divine power. This is what he intended when he 
said, "If ye have faith, if ye shall say unto this 
mountain. Be thou removed, and be thou cast into 
the sea, it shall be done." Now, whatever was the 
nature of this peculiar endowment, it is evident 
enough that there was no grace in it to save the 
soul ; for the Saviour himself declared, " Many will 



166 ONL Y BELIE VE. 

say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast 
out devils, and in thy name have done many won- 
derful works ? And then will I profess unto them, 
I never knew you." 

4. Then, lastly, the Bible means sa^dng faith ; 
the true belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, through 
which we are justified, and by which we live. 

IL In the second place, let ns inquire concerning 
the nature of this exercise. The old writers nsed 
to say that faith was composed of three elements : 
a right Apprehension, a cordial Assent, and an un- 
wavering Trust. Let me seek to exhibit these in 
turn in a very familiar way. 

1. To apprehend is really a physical act, and 
means to seize hold of When applied to mental 
operation, it signifies to conceive clearly any given 
object, and hold it before the mind for examination 
and use. It does not always include a full compre- 
hension ; and this is so especially true in reference 
to matters connected with the plan of salvation, 
that I shall seek to have it very explicitly under- 
stood here in the outset. A drowning man may 
catch a rope that hangs near him, and be rescued 



ONL Y BELIEVE. 167 

by it, without knowing who 'threw it to him, or who 
will draw it in, or what vessel it trails from. He 
apprehends it, but he does not comprehend it. He 
sees it, but he does not see all with which it is con- 
nected. The fleeing Hebrew might not know who 
erected the guide-posts on the way to the cities of 
refuge, or how they were instrumental in saving 
him from the aveuger of blood when he was within 
the walls. But he would need to see the great 
letters of the word " Eefuge" that was printed on 
them, and note the direction in which the index 
finger pointed, 

Now, a careless confounding of these terms has 
caused a great many mistakes on the part of those 
who declare they " will not believe what they can- 
not understand." They are not required to believe 
what they cannot apprehend ; but they do believe, 
over and over again, even in the common matters 
of life, what they cannot comprehend. The growing 
of the grass, the circulation of the blood, are as 
complete mysteries to human understanding as the 
doctrine of the Trinitv or the Incarnation. I must 
not- turn away from coming to the Saviour, because 
I cannot see how God could be manifest in the flesh. 



168 ONL Y BELIE YE, 

EnoiigL. is it for me, that the Scriptures reveal the 
mysterious fact that he has been. 

And here you see, therefore, how much any 
sinner can claim before he yields, and how little. 
Naaman might not know, and really had no need 
to know — no right to claim to know — ^how the river 
Jordan could cure leprosy, or what virtue there 
would be in seven bathings, or what authority Eli- 
sha had to send him there. But he needed to know 
clearly the prophet's directions, so as not to mistake 
the name of the stream, or what he was to do when 
he reached it, or forget the number of times he was 
to wash to be clean. And this he had a fair right 
to know before the crime of disobedience was urged 
upon him. Now, this is the precise limit of knowl- 
edge which the sinner may claim to have, before his 
obligation to believe begins. He may ask just as 
much information as the Israelite bitten by the fiery 
serpent in the wilderness might ask : Where is that 
image of brass ? what must I do when I approach 
it? I am ready to go. When Moses had replied, 
It is close by you in the midst of the camp ; you 
are only to look and to live; then his solemn duty 
began, and he was responsible for his own delay. 



ONL Y BELIE VE, 169 

With the philosopliy of the cure he had nothing 
to do. 

The two essential things for every man to appre- 
hend, are his own need^ and Jesus Chrisfs fitness to 
supply it. There is the inward look, and then 
there is the outward look. I cannot help myself, 
and the Saviour can help me, are the two thoughts 
that must lie buried deep in his soul. It matters 
little how these things are learned. ^' There are 
diversities of operations, but the same Spirit" The 
Holy Grhost may teach one person through the read- 
ing of the word ; another person through some stroke 
of Providence, or by the ministry of reconciliation. 
In one wav or another the soul must come to see 
its ruin and its Eedeemer ; to feel its helplessness 
and know its Helper. It may not see how it came 
to be so desperately ruined, nor how Jesus can be 
of such paramount relief to it. It may know no 
more than blind Bartimeus did ; that he could not 
see, and that the Nazarene Healer was passing by. 
Those two things, however, every sinner needs to 
perceive. 

2. Then comes the second element of faith, al- 
ready mentioned — namely, assent This is a step 

8 



1 70 ONL Y BELIEVE. 

in advance of the other. A simple illustration will 
make plain what is meant by it An invalid is 
sometimes very unwilling to admit his danger, even 
when he has nothing to oppose to the reasoning of 
one who proves it. He feels his weakness, but he 
resorts to a thousand subterfuges to avoid yielding 
to the physician. His judgment is convinced, but 
'his will is unbroken. He apprehends his danger, 
and knows the remedy ; but he refuses to be helped. 
What he needs now is assent; and this requires 
humility and the renunciation of self-will. 

Faith includes this. It calls for a cheerfnl sub- 
mission to God's requirements, the moment we 
apprehend them, no matter how humiliating the 
assertion of our ill-desert may be. When the Syro- 
phenician woman came pleading to our Saviour, he 
gave her faith a most severe testing before he 
granted her petition. "It is not meet," he said, 
"to take the children's bread and cast it to the 
dogs." Now, did she grow angry at this rebuff? 
Did she refuse to admit its justice? Did she go 
away grieved, because he seemed to be harsh to her ? 
No, indeed; she admitted it all. "Truth, Lord," 
said she, * yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall 



ONL Y BELIE VE. 171 

from their master's table." Then he raised her up, 
saying, " woman, great is thy faith ; be it imto 
thee as thou wilt." She not only saw the truth, 
but assented to it likewise, though the admission 
was humbling in the extreme. And so must the 
inquiring sinner give assent to all the teachings of 
the Gospel, self-abasing as they are ; admit every 
thing ; throw up all excuses ; leave all refuges of 
lies ; renounce self altogether ; " only believe." 

3. The third element of saving faith is trust. By 
this I mean reliance on the truth of what God has 
said he would do ; a quiet resting on his promises 
to accomplish all we need for salvation. You re- 
member in the case of the centurion, our Lord 
declared he " had not found so great faith, no, not 
in Israel." Now, what was it that made his faith 
in particular so great, so peculiar in itself, and so 
superior in the estimation of the Saviour ? Simply 
the presence in it of superabounding trust. Ho 
had come for a gift of healing to be bestowed upon 
his servant lying at home sick. To his request 
Jesus replied, "1 will come and heal him." One 
would think that now the centurion would doubt a 
little. Might not the Saviour forget his promise in 



172 ONLY BELIEVE. 

the mnltiplicity of his cares ? Might he not delay 
coming till too late ? Even this suspicion made his 
trust a matter of somewhat difficult exercise ; and 
yet that man was willing to go further. He was 
content to rest on a mere declaration, without a 
promise. ^' Speak the word only," said he, ^'and 
my servant shall be healed." He did not care to 
have the Saviour's presence, if he would only say 
the man should be whole. Then he could depart 
to his house restful and satisfied. 

This is trust ; acquiescence wdthout question, rest- 
falness without wavering ; and it is the most essen- 
tial part of faith, and yet the most difficult to exer- 
cise. Almost all in our Christian communities have 
two of the elements of faith already mentioned. 
They know the Saviour's history. They under- 
stand his Gospel plan. They have been told his 
ability and his willingness to save them. A first 
step then, apprehension, has been taken. And so 
has a second, assent, been taken by very many. 
They do not doubt one word that God has spoken. 
They feel their ruin. They are under a constant 
conviction of sin. They admit everything. Now, 
what yet do they need ? Nothing except this third 



ONL Y BELIE YE. 173 

step, trust; "Only believe." Eely on the Saviour. 
Best in him. Hold to his truth in all he says. 

III. The use to be made of this analysis, comes 
next to view. We are ready to speak to any in- 
quiring sinner in our class directly, and this is what 
to say. 

Your experience hitherto has been something 
like this. You have seen your need; you have 
admitted it ; you have gone in prayer to Jesus con- 
fessing it. Told to pray, you did pray. Moved by 
some faithful sermon, or tract, or conversation, you 
have gone home to the privacy of your own cham- 
ber, making sober resolution to become a Christian 
at once. You know you have been a sinner, con- 
demned to eternal death. You assented to all that 
the word of God charges on you. And you longed 
to be helped. Told to confess, you did confess. 
Told you must be in earnest, you honestly think 
you laid your whole heart bare before God. You 
acknowledged everything, and only plead for par- 
don. You said in your prayer, " Lord, I am 
vile, I come to thee ; I plead thy promise that thou 
wilt not cast me out ; I give myself away in an 
everlasting surrender ; I leave my soul at the very 



17-i ONLY BELIEVE, 

foot of the cross !" And then you rose from your 
knees, marmnring, '' Oh. I am no better ; I feel just 
the same as before I" 

You sa^v that you had made a failui'e. Now 
where was the Lack? Simply m the particular of* 
truLst You would not take Jesus at his word. He 
had said, *' Him that cometh unto me I will in no 
wise cast out. " So you plead with him. You came 
unto him, but tou insist that he did cast vou out 
after all 

You said — ^here I am : and then you drew back. ' 
You said — I give myself to thee : and then you 
took yourself away again. You trifled with God. 
You should have left yourself there, and trusted 
vour soul with him, as. vou said vou would. Let 
me suggest to you where your disappointment was 
centered. I think I can tell you what you half- 
expected, half-bargained, on the spot 

If some clear voice had only spoken to you as 
you kneeled, saying, ^^ Thy sins be forgiven thee ; 
go in peace." how your heart would have leaped for 
joy. If you could only have seen Paul's "great 
light," that would have confirmed you. Or if even 
Bome aged minister had bent over and whispered 



ONLY BELIEVE. I75 

in your ear, ''You are received, I am sure," then 
you would perhaps have been satisfied, and begun 
tremblingly to hope. But because you had nothing 
of this, not even a sign without, or a strange feel- 
ing within, that you could make to answer for a 
sign, you were discouraged. Now, I have three 
remarks to make about this action of yours, and 
its result. 

In the first place, let me say, I would not have 
been the minister to tell you of your acceptance, 
for all the world. For then j^ou would have be- 
lieved in me, not in the Saviour. No man has any 
right to say such a thing to you. I have seen those 
who in revival times will question and direct for a 
while, and then say to young persons, " All right, 
you are converted !" and my blood has run cold. 
They know nothing about it. 

In the second place, let me tell you that you 
never will have any such sign, without or within, 
to be your confirmation. If God ever gives any- 
thing of the sort, it will only be afterward, for your 
comfort. " "We walk by faith, not by sight;" and 
this would be sight, not faith. God does not deal 
with men so. He claims that that they shall trust 



176 OXL Y BELIEVE. 

liim ivitJiout speaking. If jou stand off, saying in 
your heart, I will belieye tlie moment Ifeel accepted, 
you will neyer be accepted. Yon must trust, and 
ask no fayors. Then God will giye you what he 
pleases. And most likely, one day or another, he 
will giye you some token of his loye that will aid 
you ; but he neyer will, if you bargain for it. 

Go again then ; do not wait, nor grieye, nor bar- 
gain, nor doubt. Do not reply to me, *^ Oh, I have 
done all I can oyer and oyer again ; and it is of no 
use." There is one thing you can do, that you 
neyer haye done yet. You can trust the Sayiour. 
So I say again, and keep saying to you, *• Only be- 
lieye." 

In the thii'd place, let me say, that if this sign 
were giyen you, it would be the most dangerous 
thing for you that could be conceiyed. Because 
then you would trust the sign, and not the Sayiour. 
Perhaps you haye read that story of the woman, 
told in the '' Pastor !s Sketches,*' who saw a beau- 
tiful Bii'd of Paradise on a blue globe, and believed 
it was the e^'idence God had sent to show her she 
was born again. Are you surprised to find that 
when she was asked for her ground of salvation, 



OXL Y BELIE VE. I'J'J 

she had to tell all about that ridiculous dream the 
very first thing ? So would you, if you had any 
such folly in your mind. And by and by you 
would wake to the consciousness that only Jesus 
can save your soul, and you had been deceiving 
yourself all this time. 

When you have given yourself to Chiist, leave 
yourself there, and go about -your work as a child 
in his household. When he has undertaken yoar 
salvation, rest assured he will accomplish it, with- 
out any of your anxiety, or any of your help. 
There remains enough for you to do, with no con- 
cern for this part of the labor. 

Let me illustrate this posture of mind as well as 
I can. A shipmaster was once out for three nights 
in a storm ; close by the harbor, he yet dared not 
attempt to go in, and the sea was too rough for the 
pilot to come aboard. Afraid to trust the less ex- 
perienced sailors, he himself stood firmly at the 
helm. Human endurance almost gave way before 
the unwonted strain. Worn with toil, beating 
about ; worn yet more with anxiety for his crew 
and cargo ; he was well nigh relinquishing the 
wheel, and letting all go a-wreck, when he saw the 

8- 



178 ^^^^ ^ BELIEVE. 

little boat coming, with the pilot. At once that 
hardy sailor sprang on the deck, and v/ith hardly a 
word took the helm in his hand. The Captain 
w^ent im^iediately below, for food and for rest ; and 
especially for comfort to the passengers, who were 
weary with apprehension. Plainly now his duty 
was in the cabin ; the pilot wonld care for the ship. 
Where had his burden gone ? The master's heart 
was as light as a school-boy's ; he felt no pressure. 
The pilot, too, seemed perfectly unconcerned ; he 
had no distress. The great load of anxiety had gone 
forever ; fallen in some way or other betwefe them. 
Now turn this figure. We are anxious to save 
our soul, and are beginning to feel more and more 
certainly that w^e cannot save it. Then comes 
Jesus, and undertakes to save it for us. Vv^e see 
how willing he is ; we know how able he is ; there 
we leave it. We let him do it. We rest on his 
promise to do it. We just put that work in his 
hands to do all alone ; and we go about doing some- 
thing else ; self-improvement, comfort to others, 
doing good of every sort. He feels no burden. 
What troubled us so, does not trouble him. -All 
Vfe need to do is to hold our confidence firm. What 



ONLY BELIEVE. 179 

if tliat captain should keep running up to see if the 
pilot was still there ; or to offer to help him ; or to 
make suggestions ; would it not be folly ? So, for 
us to keep distressing ourselves about salvation 
when we have given all that work to Christ, is 
worse than folly ; it is doubting the Saviour, slight- 
ing his love, giving up trust in him just as we 
begin it. 

One more illustration will make the whole matter 
clear. A little child, running up to bid her father 
good-by in the morning as he goes to business, 
says, "Bring me a present to-day." "What shall 
it be, little one?" So he questions. " What will 
you give?" she returns upon him. ^^ Anything you 
asJcj^^ he replies. That proves too much for the 
young heart to hold alone. She hurries for a faith- 
ful help she has : " Mother, what shall I ask him 
to fetch me to-night; he says anything?^'' "Are 
you sure of the word, my' child?" "Yes, mother, 
he said he would give me anything I ash ; I know 
he means of course anything that is proper for a lit- 
tle girl ; and I cannot think what I ^ant the most.'* 
" Tell him to bring a Pilgrim's Progress for you." 

And before the words are all out, the eager child 



180 ONL Y BELIEVE. 

is in the hall again. '' Father, bring me a Pilgrim's 
Progress ;" but no word of reply. He puts on his 
coat, and there is a tug at the skirt ; " Father, will 
you do it ? a Pilgrim's Progress ; will you bring 
it ?" And no answer yet ; and no answer at all. 
He is gone. Does the child doubt ? No. Why ? 
Because her mother calls her up to say, "You will 
get that book." "How do you know?" questions 
the little one. 

" For two reasons : first^ your father never told a 
lie ; and he said he would give you anything you 
asked ; second^ you have asked what most of all he 
wanted you to have ; for I heard him say he wished 
his little girl would read Pilgrim's Progress through. 
Never mind that he said no more ; he wants to 
know you trust him and love him." 

And when I find, my inquiring friend, that you 
are disturbed because you have no word nor sign, 
although you have asked God to forgive you and 
give you a new heart, I can only say to you, truM 
him for that. I have two reasons also : He never 
told a lie, and He surely said, "Ask whatsoever 
you will ;" and you have asked of him the very 
tiling he desired most earnestly to give you. 



ONL Y BELIE VE. 1 g 1 

There, then, is the direction found in a word; 
yet, oh, how full of meaning it is ! " Be not afraid; 
only Believe!'^ Come to the Saviour ; rest on him ; 
hold yourself to him. Say in a prayer : — 

" Just as I am ; thy love unknown, 
Hath, broken every barrier down ; 
Now to be thine^ yea, thine alone, 
Lamb of G-od, I come !" 





XIII. 



The TeacKer Tau^Kf. 



'' Thou therefore which teachest another^ teachest thou not thyself T- 

EOMANS IL 21. 




N his conversation with Nicodemns our 
Saviour enunciated the principle to which 
all Christian usefulness must eventually be referred ; 
namely, that religious instruction, in order to be 
effective, must grow up out of one's personal ex- 
perience. A careful exposition of the passage from 
which our text is taken will show that it offers like- 
wise an illustration of the same rule. 

The model Pharisee of primitive times imagined 
he was reaching the ultimate height of excellence 
when he could call himself a Jew ; he asserted for 
himself the most edifying orthodoxy ; he presented 
his life as the pattern of flawless morality and 
eminent devotion ; he claimed extraordinary keen- 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT Igg 

ness in discrimination, approving only what was 
excellent ; lie contemplated himself as sublimely 
equal to any exigency of public station ; he could 
inform the ignorant, illumine the darkened, give 
counsel to bewildered adults, and help forward un- 
taught children, being fully conversant with all the 
ritual and all the creed. 

Yet with all these assumptions the apostle seems 
to have discovered that which led him to rate such 
a creature as a mere spiritual quack ; and he here 
denounces him with terrible violence. This man, 
so earnest against thieving, had a touch of dishon- 
esty ; so stern in pressing the penalties of the 
seventh commandment, had some sins which would 
look ill under scrutinj^ In a word, he was instruct- 
ing others with no word for himself And, again, 
with great detail of illustration so as not to be mis- 
understood, St. Paul reiterates the grand principle 
of the Gospel : religious instruction is to he indorsed 
hy the living experience of the instructor. 

This is the theme upon which I venture once 
more to address my fellow- workers in the Sunday- 
school. A few general considerations- will rendei 
the point sufficiently clear. 



184: TEE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

L Consider, first, the great common need under 
wliicli humanity lies. It has pleased God to make 
men instruments of good to each other. Hence the 
proclamation of the Gospel is necessarily experi- 
mental. No conyerted man has really any thing 
more to say than this : '' Come and hear, all ye that 
fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for 
my soul." 

There is singular adyantage in this method, if 
only faithfully carried out It inyokes all the 
power of sympathy. It renders one man influen- 
tial oyer many. It sayes material. It stimulates 
exertion. Men are always moved to action in their 
own behalf when they find others, once confessedly 
in the same catesrory, now relatino; and commendino; 
the means of their extrication. Naaman was just 
the person to tell lepers of the prophet in Samaria, 
who had bidden him go wash in the Jordan. Bar- 
timeus was just the right one to lead blind men to 
Jesus, who had opened his eyes. Hence it is per- 
fectly natural that we demand of him who teaches 
us that he should first haye felt the truth he 
proffers, that he should haye experienced the good 
he promises, that he should haye obeyed the com- 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. I35 

mand he is urging. We instinctively question the 
right of any individual to address us upon those 
grand matters of personal salvation, unless he can 
say as Christ did, " We speak that we do know, 
and testify that we have seen." He is in as great 
peril as we are ; he is in as much need as we are ; 
and we say, "Physician, heal thyself!" 

II. Consider, in the second place, the aim of all re- 
ligious instruction. The conscience must be reached, 
and through its monitions the entire life must be 
influenced, or else all teaching is wasted. And 
conscience is seared more or less in every case 
where the soul has so far passed from mere infancy 
as to reach the exercise of free-will. Grreat inge- 
nuity is required in order to reach it ; something 
more than ingenuity is required in order to arouse 
it. Even then it is often misunderstood. 

Nothing appears so mysterious as the forms of 
operation which this inner monitor chooses. Some- 
times it seems to render a man harder and more 
violent ; and yet at that very wildest moment he is 
nearer yielding than ever before. Sometimes it 
melts a man into deep emotion ; and yet we pain- 
fully discover afterward that this has been mere 



186 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

ebullition of excited feeling. The main question to 
be answered with all teachers is this : How may we 
learn to discriminate in these confusing manifesta- 
tions? 

The answer is much easier than many are inclined 
to suppose. We can not grow skillful in distin- 
guishing these external shows, without diligent 
studies of our own internal experience. Conscience 
must be watched in its working within our hearts. 
'' As in water face answereth to face, so the heart 
of man to man." But face does not answer to face 
exactly ; features of children differ, and expressions 
of countenance are flitting and fitfuL Still, the 
number and the name of the lineaments are on 
every face the same. On general principles, that 
truth is most effective, which, having proved itself 
forceful in reaching our own consciences, goes from 
its success there directly and unhindered upon the 
intrenchments of another. And let it wear all its 
awfnl power undisturbed ; when it has the divine 
doctrine of repentance to utter, it would be folly to 
change even its raiment of camel's hair, or cover 
the coarseness of the leathern girdle about its 
loins. 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT 187 

HI. Consider, again, the variety of forms employed 
in Scripture instruction. '^ All Scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
eousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thor- 
oughly furnished unto all good works." But then, 
how much there is of it ! One becomes bewildered 
and embarrassed in the midst of such riches. There 
is room for any amount of skill in discriminating 
what doctrine or what principle or what precept to 
apply in each given case to insure most good, and 
avert all evil. 

Now, it is no reproach for me to utter, when I 
assert that many of our Sunday-school teachers are 
at a loss here. Are there none, even in this day of 
light, who turn over the pages of God's word help- 
lessly in search of some reply to an inquiring soul ? 
When the tossed world is drifting, and a passenger 
lies at the point of death, are there none who hurry 
boldly to the Bible, as a sailor to the medicine- 
chest; and yet stand appalled at the formidable 
array of spiritual drugs, any one of which possibly 
might be helpful or hurtful, if only they could 
know which? How can we learn what truth to 



188 THE TEACHER TAUGHT, 

employ or what phases of truth to present? There 
surely can be but one reply to this question. 

Let the Scriptures be studied experimentolly. Let 
the Christian teacher re-work every principle he 
offers to others, first into his own mind, and out- 
work it into his own life. It will not be long be- 
fore he will have gone over most of the moods and 
tenses of religious feeling he will meet. It might 
not be safe that every physician try the effei3t of his 
prescriptions upon himself first ; but for spiritual 
cures there is no process that can be more confi- 
dently commended. " Out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh." 

IV. Consider, furthermore, the power of a godly 
example. The common law of influence can not be 
expected to fail, just because the force exerted has 
in some cases become salutary. The habit of the 
human heart is inveterate. Men are imitative, 
and in nothing so much as religious observance. 
Moreover, they insist upon identifying a moral 
teacher with what he teaches. Especially under 
the Grospel will they have it that Christians shall 
incarnate the truth they urge on others, and shall 
become the personal embodiment of it with all its 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 189 

predicted results. They will not suffer a limping 
man to propose an effective cure for lameness. 

Bear in mind that the world has this much of a 
show of unusual reason in the case of the followers 
of Christ ; he expressly taught that they should be 
accepted as illustrations and exemplifications of the 
Gospel. The force of one sentence in the Sermon 
on the Mount turns upon the insignificant word, 
*'/&." ''Let your light so shine before men that 
they may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father which is in heaven." "If, therefore, the 
light that is in thee be darkness, how gi^eat is that 
darkness !" In like manner, the apostles taught, 
" Ye are living epistles, known and read of all men." 

Hence there can be no inconsistency so utter as 
an inconsistent Christian teacher presents. There 
can no failure be more ridiculous in the eyes of a 
ribald world than that of a man who urges a truth 
and lives a lie. But, on the other hand, whenever 
fully possessed of the power of the Gospel, pervaded 
with its spirit, and radiant with its light, a grand life 
goes about doing good, that life has a majestic 
driving force to it almost unlimited. Men bend 
subdued to an influence which they can not com- 



190 THE TEACHER TAUGHT, 

prehend, but which they know is safe, and which 
they feel they can trust implicitly. Finer picture 
of human greatness there is not even in the Bible 
than that of Simon Peter, when the multitudes 
brought the sick out on couches, that they might 
lay them where at least his shadow could fall on 
them. Oh ! believe me, this poor world has been 
deceived cruelly a great many times, but it is yet 
intelligent enough to recognize its best benefactors. 
There is no one thing it loves more to abide under 
than a good man's shadow — the only shadow on 
this planet that renders it more luminous besides 
the shadow of the Almighty wing. 

V. Consider, in the fifth place, the law of the Holy 
Spirits action. Truth is propagated not by trans- 
mission through mere symbols, but by radiation 
through conductors in contact. 

The lens of a burning-glass will not only suffer 
the free passage of the sun's rays, but will condense 
and concentrate them, until the focus they fall upon 
bursts into flame ; meanwhile the lens itself will 
remain perfectly cool. Wonderful experiments of 
this sort have been performed with even a lens of 
ice, which kindled a fire and continued unmelted. 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 191 

You can find nothing, however, in religious matters 
to which this phenomenon would answer. The 
torch, not the burning-glass, is the emblem of spir- 
itual life ; it flames while it illumines, and is warmed 
as it sets on fire. He influences others most who 
has been nearest in contact with Christ. 

Thus the Holy Grhost becomes an indweller. 
This is the meaning of the word spirituality ; it 
signifies the presence of the Divine Spirit. And 
there surely remains no ignorance in any mind as 
to the absolute necessity of his presence in order to 
all Christian usefulness. Without him we can do 
nothing. '' If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, 
he is none of his." No religious teacher can give 
more than he gets, nor communicate more than he 
possesses. I will not deny that the Holy Grhost 
sometimes works immediately upon the human 
heart; what I urge now is merely that when he 
acts upon another heart through ours, he does it by 
entering abidingly into ours. And ordinarily he in- 
fluences the conscience next to the teacher's, by mov- 
ing the conscience of the teacher. Thus the efficient 
impulse is seen to grow up out of experience. 

Whichever way we look, then, we reach the same 



192 TSE TEACHER TAUGHT, 

conclusion. The heart lies behind the hand which 
proffers religious truth. The practical importance 
of this principle can not be over-estimated. Let 
us now search for points of contact which it finds 
in Sunday-schools. 

1. We learn here the proper use to make of the 
Scriptures. All religious instruction must be re- 
ceived experimentally. Thus the Bible becomes 
personal in every one of its utterances. How is it 
now ? ^^ The vision of all is become unto you as 
the words of a book that is sealed, which men de- 
liver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I 
pray thee ; and he saith, I can not, for it is sealed. 
And the book is delivered to him that is not 
learned, saying, Eead this, I pray thee ; and he 
saith, I am not learned." What is this that renders 
the learned and the unlearned together so at fault ? 
Surely not want of education, but want of ex- 
perience. 

It may be worth knowing, as a geographical fact, 
that there is no water in the Kidron valley save 
after a shower ; it may be important to learn, as a 
historic fact, that Capernaum was located at Khan 
Minyeh ; but this is not what is goiug to save souls. 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 193 

We need to read the Divine word witTi a deeper 
sense of its spiritual meaning. We must transmute 
facts into principles ; we must incarnate doctrine in 
daily action ; we must embody truth in life ; we 
must reduce vague information to vital and avail- 
able help. 

2. We learn to distinguish between gift and 
grace. Mere intellectual gift sometimes even hin- 
ders grace. "Christ," said Legh Eichmond, "may 
be crucified between classics and mathematics." It 
is not our want of aptitudes for doing good which 
stands in our way, half so much as it is our want 
of communion with G-od. The rule is, " Oh ! taste 
and see that the Lord is good !" Out of this ex- 
perimental acquaintance with truth grows our power 
to fitly offer it. Only thus can we learn to recom- 
mend the various viands on the table of the Gospel 
feast. Scholarship becomes a means to an end. It 
is not the show of splendid attainments, but the 
hidden force of piety underlying them, which 
affects the souls we hope to influence. 

The Gospel light is much like the solar light ; its 
beauty is not its efficiency. You may divide the 
sunbeam into seven beautiful colors, and not one 

9 



194 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

alone nor all together will imprint an image on a 
daguerreotype plate. Just outside the spectrum, in 
the dark, there is one entirely invisible ray, called 
the chemical ray, which does all the work. No 
man ever saw it, no man ever felt it ; and yet this 
it is which bleaches and blackens a dull surface 
into "figures of loveliness and life. I care not how 
luminous a man's personal or intellectual qualities 
may be ; if he lacks amid the showy beams that are 
shining this one which is viewless — this efficient 
but inconspicuous beam of spiritual experience — ^all 
his endeavors will surely prove inoperative for good. 
3. We learn here the advantage of seasons of 
discipline. In all the round of God's dealing with 
his children, there is nothing like saflfering as an 
educator. It deepens and widens and swells the 
volume of. Christian experience, so that the simplest 
utterance is made effective. Ah ! how fine is the 
promise for good that is coming, when one wearing 
habiliments of mourning enters a Sunday-school 
with the wish for a class to teach ! " He that goeth 
forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall 
doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his 
sheaves with him." 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT 195 

Anything that loosens the hold of the soul on 
earthly things, and just shuts it up ^to God, is val- 
uable ; but, as a preparation for usefulness, is price- 
less. Any man expert in sea-life could have said 
all that the apostle said when he came forth to quiet 
the Bailors in the midst of a shipwreck. The force 
of his counsel lay not so much in the prudence of 
what he suggested, as in the experience which was 
embodied in it — that ^' long abstinence" in which he 
had received his vision. One mysterious but re- 
membered hour there was which gave his speech 
all its efficiency. " And now I exhort you to be 
of good cheer ; for there shall be no loss of any 
man's life among you, but of the ship. For there 
stood by me this night the angel of Grod, whose I 
am and whom I serve, saying. Fear not, Paul, thou 
must be brought before Caesar ;' and lo ! God hath 
given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, 
sirs, be of good cheer ; for I believe God, that it 
shall be even as it was told me." It is just this, 
just this^ which is the element of power in any 
counsel. The angel of experience is sent to one, 
and then he is ready to say, " I believe God !" 

4. We learn the secret of all success, and the ex- 



196 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

planation of all failure. It would seem at first sight 
that truth is efficient in itself; that the Gospel sword 
has an inherent thrust, no matter who wields it ; and 
that all which needs to be done is to merely bring it 
in contact with human necessity. But now we un- 
derstand that first it must pass through the teacher's 
experience before it can be expected to vitally influ- 
ence those who are taught. He who fails, lacks in 
experience ; he who grows in it, succeeds ; that is, 
he who teaches another teaches also himself. 

When the plague was raging in Ireland, the 
priests gave out that if any man would take fi-om 
his own fire a piece of burning peat and light his 
neighbor's fire with it, he would deliver the family 
from an attack of the disease. The whole region 
was instantly alive with brands passing to and fro. 
Oh ! if superstition could do this much, ought not 
zeal to do more ? But the kindling was to come 
from one's own hearthstone then ; and the kindling 
must come from one's own heart now. Calvin's seal- 
motto was a hand holding a heart on fire, with the 
legend, "I give thee all, I keep back nothing!" 
What we need beyond every other earthly need is, 
to have our entire level of Christian experience 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT, 197 

lifted. We are too busy about appliances and in- 
struments and places and theories. 

My fellow -workers, suffer me one word. Since 
we last met I have been at the ends of the earth. 
This hand that writes to you has plucked olive 
leaves from the old tree in Grethsemane. I have a 
piece of a pyramid that I brought away from Egypt. 
On my table lies a canteen of water which I dipped 
from the Jordan. Alas ! how little use I can make 
of these now ! I showed them to our Sunday- 
school a few weeks ago, and that is about all I can 
do with them. And here I am back on the old 
ground again, facing my task. All I have to really 
work with, I find, is my experience of the Saviour s 
love. And that is the result, not of my journey, 
but of my prayers ! . , 

5. We learn the last ^ essential of preparation for 
teaching. We must have the presence of the Holy 
Ghost. You see this most evidently in the case of 
the apostle who penned our text. "Thus," says 
Chrysostom, " this man, three cubits high, became 
tall enough to touch the third heavens." They 
called him PauUus, because he was little. He 
had a distemper in his sight. His bodily pres- 



198 THE TEACHER TAUGHT, 

ence was said to be weak, and his speech con- 
temptible. 

But no man ever equaled him in power as a relig- 
ious teacher. He held up before the world the most 
unwelcome and despised truth of the new Gospel. 
He turned- it round and round in his hand, as his 
own soul rose to a full coinprehension of its magni- 
tude. He bound to it all his learniug; he wreathed 
around it poetry and philosophy; he warmed it 
with all his fiery ardor of temperament ; until in 
the supernatural rush of his eloquence his diminu- 
tive body was forgotten, his bent form was straight- 
ened, his weak eyes were glowing, his hesitant 
utterance became fluent ; and Saul of Tarsus, with 
all his passions and all his disabilities and all his 
sins, was lost in the inspiration of Paul, the ambas- 
sador of the living God ! No wonder that the 
simple-minded multitude of Lystra thought he was 
a deity, and brought forth garlands and oxen to 
sacrifice, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, '' The 
gods be come down to us in the likeness of men !" 

Oh ! for a baptism of the Spirit on us and on 
our children, that should fill us with a like expe- 
rience, and insure for us a like success ! 




Bioiston o[ ILabor. 
XIV. 

" One soiceth and another reapethy — John iv. 3T. 

N the British Museum there is an ancient 
lamp, once picked up at Pompeii, which 
was refitted and refilled, and kept lighted in order 
to show its original design. Thus what was only a 
vile fragment of bronze, lying unnoticed amid the 
ashes and sand of a buried city, is rendered useful 
again by the mere common-place service of new oil. 
A like ingenuity is that on record of the apostle 
Paul. When he was addressing the intellectual 
scholars of Athens, he took an old line of poetry 
which he had discovered among the moral verses of 
their dramatists, dull and dead already as an utter- 
ance of heathen devoteeism — " for we are also his 
offspring" — and, pouring into it the oil of inspira- 
tion, set it burning again for all future time. 



200 DIVISION OF LABOR, 

Here in our text we have an instance of higlier 
authority still. Our Divine Saviour selected this 
little proverb as a remnant of the dry wisdom of 
by -gone ages, and made it vital once more as. a 
medium of instruction by the fresh spiritual life 
he put in it What was then only a sententious 
adage became sacred as an avowed principle of the 
Gospel. • 

I. Let us in the beginning trace out the analo- 
gies suggested by the figure thus employed: " One 
soweth and another reapeth." Passing over from 
nature into grace, it will be well if we carry along 
with us a clear perception of the point upon which 
the force of the illustration turns. 

1. Sowing and reaping require different seasons 
for their performance. " There is a time to plant, 
and a time to pluck up that which is planted." 
The furrows are to be prepared and the grain cast 
in, near the opening of the year. Then the hus- 
bandman has to wait awhile. The mystery of 
growth begins, at once inscrutable and independent 
It may be that spring laborers will have new and 
distant tasks in the autumn. One of the most 
natural occurrences, * as things run, is, that other 



DIYISIOX OF LABOR. ' 201 

laborers will come eventually to reap what these 
have planted. 

2. Sowing and reaping need different skill for 
their performance. Farmers' boys will often vie 
with one another in generous contention as to whose 
is the highest prowess, both in the scattering of 
most grain and in the binding of most sheaves, be- 
tween any given dawn and sunset. But rarely do 
the same excellences meet in the same man. The 
quick step, the free arm, tlie erect form, the meas- 
ured motion, which make the sower eminent on 
the emnlous record, are very unlike the rapid and 
agile grasp, the bending endurance, the strong 
stride, that insure celerity to the reaper. The 
sinewy hand which is most expert at throwing the 
seed may not be the hand which most expeditiously 
wields the sickle. 

3. Sowing and reaping demand a different spirit in 
their performance. Sowing proceeds on a principle 
of hope and faith ; reaping proceeds on a principle 
of reminiscence, calculation and gratitude. The 
sower always faces the blank field, and leaves the 
seed disappearing behind him, with only an uncon- 
scious prophecy in his own mind as to the result. 

9^ 



202 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

The reaper faces the actual harvest, and cuts his 
way proudly in among the forests of ripened grain, 
beating time with his sickle to his song. 

4. Sowing and reaping have a different standard 
of success in their performances. The success of 
sowing is that the seed be sowed well ; the success 
of reaping is that the grain be reaped well. If you 
will discriminate carefully, you will observe that 
both of these two forms of activity are to be esti- 
mated according to their nature. Neither of them 
has any right to reckon upon the harvest as a cri- 
terion of fidelity. For the harvest depends on 
growth, the secret of which is beyond any labor- 
er's province. Men are hired to sow and reap, not 
to concern themselves about the yield. The respon- 
sibility of one ends when the corn is fitly in the 
ground, and of the other when the sheaves are 
fully in the garner. They who plant only put in 
the ^'bare grain;" God giveth it the "body that 
shall be," as it pleaseth him. 

11. Turning this figure now into the line of relig- 
ious instruction, let us inquire, in the second 
place, for the doctrine of the proverb. 

1. Consider it as a settled fact, that for every 



DIVISION OF LABOR, 203 

reaping there has heen a seed-sowing. The field is 
tlie world ; the harvest is one of souls. " To every 
thing there is a season, and a time to every pur- 
pose under the sun." There are spiritual processes, 
which, like the natural, demand duration, and simply 
retire within the secrecy of their own economy. 
Some one must begin them, of course, merely 
meeting first conditions. After that they need no 
help, and will suffer no interference. Nothing can 
hurry them. They must be allowed to run their 
course. The ministrations which are efficient in 
their advancement are limited, and cannot avail at 
all beyond a certain fixed line. Hence it often 
happens that when any early instrument God has 
honored in the using has dropped from his hand, 
the link of association is lost; and before the 
spiritual harvest arrives the one who sowed the 
seed is humanly forgotten. Nevertheless, let us re- 
member that never was a soul born again in this 
world but that somebody prayed for it, somebody 
labored for it, somebody far back, in the faith of a 
hopeful husbandman, planted the germ of life, cov- 
ered it carefully, and perhaps watered it more than 
once thereafter with tears. 



204 DIVISION OF LABOR, 

2. Consider it likewise as a settled fact, that/o?' 
every seed-sowing there will be a reaping. The old 
covenant of nature still abides to keep farmers 
alive. "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and 
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and v/in- 
ter, and day and night, shall not cease." How we 
do rest in that ! 

*' How awful is the thought of the wonders underground, 
Of the mystic changes wrought in the silent, dark profound I 
How each thing is upward tending, by necessity decreed. 
And the world's support depending on the shooting of a seed!" 

Well for us is it that there is a covenant of grace 
just as settled as this. We need to know that, in 
due season, we shall reap if we faint not. Other- 
wise courage fails, and all enterprise ends. So the 
explicit engagement has been made : '' For as the 
rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and 
maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give 
seed to the sower and bread to the eater : so shall 
my word be that goeth out of my mouth ; it shall 
not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the 
thing whereto I sent it." 



DIVISION OF LAB OB, 205 

3. Consider it as another settled fact, that for 
every labor there must be a laborer. God has been 
pleased to select men, women, and even little chil- 
dren for his fellow-workers nncler the plan of re- 
demption. He retains just enough of hold upon 
all the processes of life and grace to show us how 
deep is the mystery attending the birth of any re- 
newed soul, and how absolutely impotent we are 
for any endeavor beyond that which is merely ex- 
trinsic and conditional. We cannot even predict 
results, much less produce them. A narrow circle 
of appliances and instruments has been left for our 
employment. Curious, even as a study, is that 
kind of limited cooperation which God has per- 
mitted. The o'rain is God's, the g:erm in the oTain 
is God's, the life in the germ is God's, the growth 
of the life is God's; but the soil is man's, the 
plow is man's, dominion over the beasts is man's, 
and the sickle is man's. Certain actualities of fact, 
which we term means of grace, are put within our 
reach for ourselves and others ; that is all. Hence 
every labor calls for a laborer. It will not do for 
IIS all to stand back, consulting taste and pi'eference 
and convenience. AYe are servants ; there is only 



206 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

one Master. Harvesting is most welcome while 
weak human nature is what it is; but then seed- 
sowing must be done. He is the best servant who 
just puts his hand to what is nearest. 

4. Consider it also as a settled fact, that/o?^ every 
laborer there is a labor. And the .sooner we are all 
at our appointed work the better. These are no 
times for any one to stand in the market-place all 
the day idle. The good tidings are to be preached 
to the meek. The broken-hearted are to be bound 
up. Liberty remains to be proclaimed to the cap- 
tives, and the opening of the prison to them that 
are in bonds. The mourning need to be comforted. 
The old wastes are to be builded up, the desolations 
of many generations are to be repaired. There is rr 
place , then, for every follower of the Lord Jesus. 
He himself gave the motto for the church : " My 
Father worketh hitherto, and I work." In the in- 
finite varieties of labor, surely every one might 
find his place. The call does not make any dis- 
crimination ; it says only, " Son, go work to-day, in 
my vineyard." Every spirit of calculation is ex- 
cluded and rebuked. *'Why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven ?" The fields are alreadv white to har- 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 207 

vest " He that observeth the wind shall not sow ; 
and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." 
Clouds and winds are God's ; we have nothing to 
do with them ; the implements we are to use are 
the plow and sickle. 

III. All this is taught under the figure here erji- 
ployed by our Lord. But lest you should think 
the interpretation has been forced, let us now, in 
the third place, examine the philosophy of this 
form of arrangement. Why not let every man 
have one field, little or large, and do his own sow- 
ing, and rejoice in his own harvests? 

Perhaps it is never wise for us to attempt to pro- 
nounce upon the primal design of the Almighty in 
any of his foi'ms of arrangement ; but from an after 
study of the exquisite adaptations of means to 
ends, we may often infer proximately what it 
might have been. At any rate, there are discover- 
able these singular advantages belonging to the 
plan now under our eye : it holds before our minds 
■a continuous and splendid illustration of God's sov- 
ereignty; it serves to evoke and educe various 
gifts, both of intellect and heart;, it makes provi- 
sion for meeting the extreme diversities found 



208 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

among the differing classes of men ; it most effectu- 
ally disciplines personal religious experience for its 
good ; and it engenders the new grace of charity in 
our estimates of others. 

1. " One soweth and another reapeth," in order 
to illustrate the divine sovereignty. '' I know that 
whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever; noth- 
ing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it : 
and Grod doeth it that men should fear before him." 
The inveterate tendency of human pride is to exalt 
its own efficiency under every increment of success. 
And this is even more especially true in those cases 
when it has a secret conviction that the power it 
has wielded is not its own. That was the most 
supercilious steward in Scriptural history, who, 
having made a great show by lending his lord's 
money, as if it were his own, now, even when he 
had lost the stewardship by reason of peculation 
discovered, made a still greater show in attempting 
to collect it. In the world around us, it is the 
agents of rich people who become most violent and 
most purse-proud. An ill- concealed consciousness 
of imposture in all their attempts at dignity ren- 
ders them more maliciously vain. Observe, then, 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 209 

liow carefully the all-wise Master, in this moral 
field, has ordered it that no laborer, whom he em- 
ploys, shall forget his place. He is not allowed to 
remain long enough [it one work to begin to usurp 
control in it. The ownership in any harvest can 
not vest in the sower, for he never beholds it ; nor 
in the reaper, for he finds it white when he comes. 
Thus the glory of every thing belongs to God, and 
Grod receives it. He makes it ^'beautiful in his 
time." 

2. " One soweth and another reapeth," in order 
to evoke human gifts. Men are not alike either in 
ingenuity or perseverance. They need many forms 
of labor in the development of both the intellect 
and the heart. Sanguine temj)eraments best begin 
great undertakings in the world's history; quiet 
temperaments best bring them to issue. Men with 
strong personality start out with every vast enter- 
prise ; but men with deep humility come in with 
the sheaves of success. ]fo-each moral purpose the 
mind of a Christian worker skills itself for effec- 
tiveness according to its prevailing gift. Thus 
each is enabled to stand on a better vantage-ground 
by entering into the labors of those who preceded 



210 DIVISION- OF LABOR. 

Mm. Finely illustrated is all this kind of division 
of labor in the discoveries of science. To find a 
grand principle of nature is one thing ; to apply it 
is quite, another. So the most meritorious achieve- 
ments have oftentimes to distribute the honors 
widely. Gioja invented the compass ; Columbus 
followed it over the sea. Franklin linked light- 
ning to electricity ; Morse linked electricity to 
thought. And generally it may be said that all 
these conspicuous successes have been preceded by 
a great unreckoned, unhistoric, inconspicuous mass 
of minor successes, each opening the path toward 
the final triumph. Thus every man becomes more 
useful by a concentration of his genius, and God 
gets the better glory. 

8. " One soweth and another reapeth,'' in order 
to meet the diverse dispositions of men. We must 
never forget that the grand purpose of the Gospel 
is the conversion of souls. If this is not gained, 
there never is any real advance. And so subtle 
are the intricacies of the human heart that ingenui- 
ties of approach to it are in high demand in the 
churches. Now, it matters nothing how large is 
the work to be done or how small ; different dispo- 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 211 

sitions require diflerent methods of dealing, and 
where one fails another may succeed. Take any 
great work: in the Eeformation there were the 
bold-faced ecclesiastics to need the thunder of Mar- 
tin Luther's voice, and then there were timid com- 
mon people to need the quieter accents of Melanch- 
thon's. At one time the movement went on more 
safely by far because Luther was shut up in Wart- 
burg Castle. So the trumpet of John Knox was 
as helpfal as the pen of John Calvin ; but neither 
could have been spared. Take any small work: 
here is an unsuccessful Sabbath-school teacher toil- 
ing almost hopelessly over a rude boy in the class ; 
another person comes, and the spell of resistance is 
dissolved. The one teacher is no better than the 
other, only the one is unlike the other. Grod uses 
the mere personal characteristics of both at his will. 
4. "One soweth and another reapeth," in order 
to discipline religious experience. You will never 
understand why Elisha sent Naaman to bathe 
seven times in the Jordan with a view to his cure, 
unless you take into the account the interior life 
of the man. Each time previous to the seventh he 
would be likely to say as he came up from the 



212 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

stream — still no better, no better. But witli every 
repetition of an act of duty done, not because of 
anticipated reward, but because it was duty, there 
would come an unconscious increment of faith. 
His will would be breaking, his self-confidence 
would be on the wane, and by the time the final 
obedience was reached he would be in a state of 
mind fit to be healed. So of the company which 
at Joshua's command marched around Jericho only 
blowing rams' horns for an entire week. With 
every day's repetition they would think quietly of 
the duty conscientiously performed, their faith 
deepening, their anticipation quickening, mean- 
while. Now this is really the law of Christian 
advancement. What God once said to Israel, he 
now says to each one of as : "I knew that thou art 
obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy 
brow brass." The grand purpose of all this life is 
just to bend that iron and soften that brass. Hu- 
man will needs to be broken by repeated disap- 
pointment before.it becomes meet to receive suc- 
cess. It matters little how painfully the discipline 
is continued, if only at last the heart will be able 
to say with the heroic Paul: "By the grace of 



DIYISIOK OF LABOR, 213 

God I am what I am, and his grace which was 
bestowed upon me was not in vain ; but I labored 
more abundantly than they all ; yet not 7J but the 
grace of God which was with me." 

5. " One soweth and another reapeth," in order 
to teach us charity. To one properly educated in 
spiritual and moral mechanics, there will always 
be significance in even the slightest lever and pin- 
ion and pin, as well as in the massive wheels within 
wheels. You will remember the absurd disap- 
pointment of the laborers, who jealously demanded 
more than their penny because the same was 
given to those who came into the vineyard at the 
eleventh hour. There must be no envy among the 
followers of Christ. Fine, high challenge is that 
which the apostle uttered, when some weak-minded 
converts were forming parties in Corinth: "Who 
then is Paul, and who is ApoUos, but ministers by 
whom ye believed, even as the Lord gaye to every 
man ? I have planted, Apollos watered ; but God 
gave the increase. So then neither is he that 
planteth any thing, neither he that watereth ; but 
God that giveth the increase." No man is so great 
in this world as to be greater than any other man, 



214 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

provided both of them are the servants of God. 
Samuel swayed rule in Israel, but the day was when 
the forgotten Hannah made him a little coat every 
year. The widow of Sarepta, with her barrel of 
inexhaustible meal, her cruse of unfailing oil, and 
her loft where he abode, had very much to do with 
that splendid triumph of Elijah on the summit of 
Carmel. Andrew had a share in the converts at 
Pentecost, for he led Simon Peter to Jesus. Do 
you know who Epenetus was ? Did you ever hear 
of Adronicus and Julia ? Yet please go and read 
the last chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 
to see how kindly he spoke of these and others ; 
they were all his '' workfellows" and his "kins- 
men." 

IV. In making practical application of these 
thoughts, there will be danger of my becoming 
prolix. The reach they possess is very extensive ; 
they serve to correct many mistakes. But I will 
delay your minds with the mere mention of only a 
few lessons. 

1. Here you discover the true dignity of faithful- 
ness. Success is the world's criterion of merit; 
fidelity is God's. The reward of being " faithful 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 215 

over a few things" is just the same as being "faith- 
ful over many things ; for the emphasis falls upon 
the same word ; it is the " faithful" who will enter 
into the joy of their Lord. 

2. Here you see what it is xo be a soldier of the 
cross. I fall to thinking sometimes in the night of 
the brave boys that went forth five years ago from 
many of our Sunday-school classes, and laid them- 
selves down to die in the Wilderness and at Gettys- 
burg. There in their graves they lie, and we are 
entering into theu^ labors to-day in the peace they 
conquered. How little heroism for God there is in 
this world now ! Put it to your own soul — how 
would you like it if you were bidden to go labor 
for a grand cause, die only in the faith of victory, 
" but without the sight" ? 

3. Here you learn how imperatively every one is 
urged to enter his field of duty. Alas for the force 
which is simply wasted in trying to find one's work ! 
If he is not good at sowing, let him break up 
fallow ground ;- if he cannot plow, let him go and 
reap. Do something somewhere immediately. If 
you can not plant heavy theology like Jonathan 
Edwards, be willing to sow light exhortations like 



216 DIVISION OF LABOR. 

Harlan Page. If you cannot preach like White- 
field, go read the Bible at a bedside, and then write 
"The Victory Won." 

4. Here yon perceive the folly of being disheart- 
ened at delay. God sometimes takes natural 
methods of removing obstacles even when they 
would appear most dilatory. Daniel once became 
very much troubled under the impression that his 
prayer had not been answered. The angel Gabriel 
was sent to him to say that the petition was heard 
as usual, and the command had gone forth for its 
reply, but that the prince of the kingdom of Persia 
had withstood the Almighty twenty-one days.. No 
man ought to get impatient in three weeks. He 
can bear as long as God does. Philip the Second 
used to say, " Time and /will work wonders." 

5. Here you discover, on the other hand, how 
weak is all undue elation at success. Those who 
went before us labored, and we entered into their 
labors. The most prosperous ministry is not always 
the most toilsome, the most self-sacrificing, or the 
most meritorious. Philip baptized the eunuch in 
the desert, and that introduced the Gospel into 
Africa. But the sermon which converted the 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 217 

eiinucli was one preached seven hundred years be- 
fore Philip was born, by the prophet Isaiah. And 
Isaiah w^as so much discouraged that he said no one 
had believed his report. God not unfrequently 
sends a man to reap that whereon he bestoAved no 
labor. Sometimes a teacher reports a name with 
great joy ; a new soul has been added to the re- 
deemed. But now, if influences w^ere searched out, 
it might be found that the prayers of a dead mother 
or the counsels of a distant father had made the 
way easy. 

6. Here, then, you begin to imagine what sur- 
prises there will be at the final ingathering. As 
the great day draws nearer, events will hurry some- 
what " Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that 
the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the 
treader of grapes him that soweth seed." Then we 
shall know how intimately we have labored together. 
He that reapeth shall then receive his wages, and 
gather fruit unto life eternal;, "that both he that 
soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." 
When the unwritten history shall be read, and not 
before^ I suppose the names of the heroes and the 
heroines will appear. " They shall not build and 

10 



218 



DIVISION OF LABOR. 



another inliabit ; they shall not plant and another 
eat ; for as the days of a tree are the days of my 
people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work 
of their hands." 





XV. 

'The Transjiguration of our Samour.) — Luke ix. 28-36. 

HIS study is unlike those whicli have pre- 
ceded it, in that it consists of a report of 
an actual recitation in the midst of a public con- 
vention held in New York City, in the spring of 
1867. The audience was densely crowded in the 
body and galleries of the church. Many clergymen 
were present, as well as a large number of our most 
faithful and intelligent Sunday-school workers. It 
had been expected that a group of young men 
would be present w^ho might act their part in the 
exercise of question and answer ; but this inadver- 
tently failed. The Institute composed the class. 
The place of the lesson had been announced the 
evening before, and the teachers requested to bring 
their Bibles with them. 



220 ^ BIBLE- CLASS LESSOK 

The teacher prefaced the lesson by a word of 
greeting to those who were engaged in the common 
cause of instructing the young out of the Word of 
God. He recognized but few of the many hun- 
dreds of teacliei-s before him, but hoped that none 
would hesitate to ask and to answer any questions 
bearing upon the lesson. If he should call upon 
personal friends, whom he was glad to greet around 
him, and they should not be ready with an answer, 
he hoped that they, at least, would be bold enough 
to say, "I do not know," with all calmness and 
equanimity, — which are among the first requisites 
of good Sunday-school teachers. 

The teacher held in his hand a little book en- 
titled "Robinson's Harmony," which he found 
most convenient for use in referring to the various 
passages. 

Teacher, May I ask my good brother P to 

read the 28th verse ? 

P reads clearly and distinctly, ''And it 

came to pass about an eight days after these say- 
ings, he took Peter and John and James and went 
up into a mountain to pray." 

Teacher, We have this narrative repeated in two 



A BIBLE-CLASS LESSON. 221 

others of the evangelists, Matthew and Mark. Not 
much addition is made to it in either, and only an 
occasional word is thrown in by Mark, in his pe- 
culiarly graphic style. Will my good brother 

A S tell me what ^^ sayings" Luke refers 

to — " After these sayings ?" 

S- . The teachings of our Saviour in refer- 
ence to the true spirit of the Christian life. 

Teacher. Just before that our Saviour had re- 
ceived a rebuke. Who administered it ? Is there 
a record in the Bible of any man who dared to 
administer a rebuke to Christ ? 

S . Simon Peter. 

Teacher, Yes. Our Saviour told him that he 
was to die on the cross. Simon Peter resisted the 
very thought, and would have had him retreat 
from the atonement, if he could thereby have saved 
his life. He received for this the most' stinging 
rebuke that ever man received — ^' Get thee behind 
me, Satan !" And it was because our Saviour saw 
that the disciples were unable to bear that great 
truth of his suffering that this scene of the trans- 
figuration seems to have been instituted as a part 
of his history. It was "after these sayings," that 



222 • ^ BIBLE- GLASS LESSOK 

"it came to pass." How long after, brother 
W ? 

R W . "About an eight days." 

Teacher. Is any otber time mentioned by the 
other evangelists ? 

R W . Matthew and Mark call it six 

days, perhaps including part of the other two, 
making the eight. 

Teacher. There are two ways of reconciling the 
apparent difference. Luke says "about an eight 
days." Matthew and Mark, "six days." Well, six 
is " about" eight, and eight is " about" six. That 
is Matthew Henry's way of disposing of such diffi- 
culties. He says, for instance, of the two blind 
men, "if there were two, there was certainly one." 
So if eight, there were certainly six days of interval 
between the events spoken of A better way is 

that suggested by brother W , to suppose that 

Luke, in giving this account, was rather more par- 
ticular than the others, and counted as one the day 
upon which they started, and also the day follow- 
ing the evening which was celebrated by this great 
appearance of the transfiguration, and joins them 
together, making up the eight Perhaps in this 



• A BIBLE- CLASS LESS OK 223 

eight days there is an allusion to the seven-fold 
division of time. Dr. Alexander in his note makes 
the remark that very possibly it is the common 
indefinite form of speaking — customary in the 
French and German language now, and then per- 
haps in familiar Greek — "about a week," and it 
may have been that this took place upon what was 
afterwards the Christian Sabbath. 

The narrative tells us that Jesus had companions 

with him. Will the Rev. Mr. T- tell us who 

they were ? 

T . " Peter and John and James." 

Teacher. Why these three ? 

T- . They were the three nearest to him, and 

to whom he wished to communicate the particular 
doctrine represented in the transfiguration. 

Teacher. Do you remember any other instances ? 

T . In the Gethsemane sorrow, and at the 

raising of Jairus's daughter. 

Teacher. Yes ; Peter the most loving, John the 
most beloved, and James, next to the most loving 
the one that loved most, and next to the one be- 
loved the most loved. These three seem to have 
been chosen as the most intimate companions of 



224 ^ BIBLE- CLASS LESSOK 

Christ, the chosen three out of the chosen twelve. 
These Jesus takes with him to the little prayer- 
meeting which he held on the mountain. For 
Luke tells us that he went up into the mountain to 
pray. And this is usually brought in to decide a 
question that seems to be unsettled in some minds. 
Will the Eey. Mr. H tell us whether the trans- 
figuration took place in the night time or in the 
day time ? 

H I suppose it was in the night 

Teacher. Can any one give a reason for this sup- 
position that it was in the night time ? 

P . It would make the scene more brilliant 

and observable. 

Teacher. That was a possible reason. It would 
be more conspicuous. Any other ? 

A S . The weariness of the disciples, for 

we are told that they were "heavy wdth sleep." 

Teacher. We have, then, two reasons. A third is 
suggested, whioh is found in the 37th verse. They 
did not come from the mountain till "the next 
day." Where did the transfiguration take place? 

JR -. On Mount Hermon ; they were at that 

time in that part of the country. 



A BIBLE-CLASS LESS OK 225 

P . On Little Hernion, near Mount Tabor. 

Mount Hermon was ten thousand feet liigh, and 
covered with snov/. It does not seem probable 
that they would go to such a place for such a 
meeting. Little Hermon, one of the spurs of Mount 
Tabor, was but a thousand feet high. 

Teacher. Where does tradition locate it ? 

Scholar, On Mount Tabor. 

Teacher. Yes. But the tradition only dates back 
to the fourth century. Before that time nothing 
had been said of Tabor as the scene of the transfig- 
uration. Afterwards it was fixed as the spot, and 
tradition carried the opinion down the centuries. 
Churches were erected on the mount, with a view 
to commemorating the scene. The lateness of the 
tradition is an argument against Mount Tabor. 
"What about the distance of Hermon? Where 
were the disciples during the week ? Could they 
not have traveled fifty miles to the neighborhood 
of Hermon, which was in northern Galilee, near 
Csesarea Philippi ? 

W' . They might have done so, but it 

seems more probable that they stayed where they 

were. 

10* 



226 ^ BIBLE- GLASS LESSON, 

Teacher. Tradition lias confounded the two Her- 
raons. Grreat Hermon was near C^sarea Philippi, 
Little Hermon was near Tabor, at the lower end of 
the sea of Galilee, and near Tiberias. Another ob- 
jection to Tabor, besides the tradition, is that its 
top was occupied by a fortified city, or more prob- 
ably a fortified Roman rampart, and there would 
not be room for such a scene. But surely there 
would be room enough for a modest company like 
this somewhere on the slope, just for four men to 
stand : there is no hint that any one else saw the 
splendor. And then gome have argued for Her- 
mon, that the characteristic note thrown in by 
Mark, that our Saviour's raiment was "white as 
snow," was suggested by the snow around them, 
on Hermon's sides. Singularly enough, the best 
versions omit that comparison. A large niimber 
of learned commentators argue on both sides. It 
may be remarked, that all the arguments in favor 
of Mount Hermon rest simply as against Mount 
Tabor. There is no argument positively for Her- 
mon ; only conjecture. But it seems to me that 
the whole thing has been taken out of its relative 
importance ; and it is a curious fact that the dis- 



A BIBLE-GLASS LESSON. 227 

cussions of the traditional location, &c., have often 
commanded more interest and attention than the 
fact of the transfiguration itself We may rest in 
the confidence that the mountain was accessible, 
and that it was a good place for the scene which 
was enacted upon it. 

" And he took Peter and John and James, 

and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he 
prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, 
and- his raiment was white and glistering." 

Teacher. How forcibly does this suggest to us 
the lesson that comes out through all our Christian 
experience, as to the disclosures of Christ obtained 
in the moment of prayer ! I think we may get a 
greater consciousness of the real force of the story 
of the transfiguration, if we will accept the little 
conceit of considering it as a union prayer-meeting — 
the church on earth meeting the church in heaven, 
with Christ in the midst of them ! "We shall find 
what they talked about by-and-by. Here we have 
the living and the dead coming together, with only 
the vail of flesh between them, in the presence 
of the once crucified but now risen and glorified 
Christ Noble testimony to the value and power 



228 • A BIBLE-CLASS LESSON. 

of the disclosures made in prayer, to Christ's dis- 
ciples ! 

Teacher. Will you tell me, Mr. J , what is 

meant by the word ^'fashion," in the text, "The 
fashion of his countenance was altered ?'' 

J- . The " appearance." 

Teacher. Yes; just that, and that only. Fashion 
is not appearance now ; it is to hide appearance. 
Humbling recollection it ought ever to be that 
clothes came into the world with sin. They are 
evidences of lost innocence ; and the less pride we 
show in them the better. The old Eng^lish word 
occurs six times in the Scriptures, and is almost 
always translated by the word " appearance " or 
" form." The '' form " of his countenance, then, was 
altered ; it appeared otherwise than it usually did. 
Mark's little word here, " shining exceeding white 
as snow," and then his comparison, '' so as no fuller 
on earth can white them," is one of the finer illus- 
trations of Mark's peculiar way of describing a 
scene. He mentions fewer scenes, but more in de- 
tail, than the other three evangelists. 

"White and glistering." Will the Eev. Mr 
W tell us what these words mean? 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESSOK 229 

W . Very bright in appearance. 

Teacher. Yes ; flashing brightness, like the rays 
or beams of a star, or the glancing of light upon a 
spear's point. It refers to a radiating light. Where 
this peculiar light came from, or what it was, has 
exercised the speculative gifts of great and anxious 
commentators, but they only darken the light in 
more senses than one. Whether the light came 
from within or from without, we do not know. All 
we know is that it was this peculiar, splendid mani- 
festation of the Saviour in the immediate presence 
of these three chosen disciples, that filled them with 
such wonder and awe. Nearer to heaven no men 
could get than they were permitted to get that 
night. Nearer to heaven no men can get than 
when two or three meet together in his name, 
and he is in the midst. Whilst he was there it 
seemed that he was not left alone. The disciples 
discover, the moment they look up, that he has 
companions. Who else appear ? 

Scholar. Moses and Elias. 

Teacher. Yes ; Moses as the representative of the 
Law, Elias as the representative of the Prophets — 
the representatives of the old dispensation meeting 



230 A BIBLE-CLASS LESSOK 

with Petei', James, and Jolm as representatives of 
the new ; the one likewise representing the dead, 
the other the living saints. 

Teacher. To Mr. P . Was there anything pe- 
culiar about Moses' death- and burial ? 

P . There seemed to have been a dispute be- 
tween Satan and Michael concerning his body. 

Teacher. Yes, and you remember that he went 
up to Mount Nebo to die, and no record was made 
of his death, or of the place of his burial, but we 
are told that the Lord buried his body. Then there 
is a singular expression of Jude in reference to the 
Devil and the Archangel contending about his 
body. Some commentators say that in Moses we 
have another case of unseen and unrecorded trans^ 
lation, and that his body is now in heaven as 
Elijah's is, and that in this glorification of the 
earthly body before death in the case of our Sav- 
iour, there were added for illustration and ex- 
hibition the two cases of glorified bodies after 
death. 

Mr. W , I will ask you a question : Did 

Elijah go up in the whirlwind, or in the chariot of 
fire? How did he go up ? 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESSON. 231 

W- . He went up in the whirlwind, in the 

chariot of fire. 

Teacher. Well, sir, almost every Sunday-scholar 
asks that question, and almost every teacher an- 
swers that the ciiariot was there to take him up. 
Perhaps he went up in the chariot and the chariot 
in the whirlwind, but it does not say so. The 
record says that he went up in the whirlwind. A 
note of caution, merely, to teachers to observe the 
text strictly and with great care. 

But I would like to call yonr attention particu- 
larly to the next verse: "Who appeared in glory 
and spake of his decease which he should accom- 
plish at Jerusalem." Why did not Peter ask about 
that ? It was a question that had deeply interested 
him. He did not get much comfort from the dis- 
ciples. They did not realize their state at all. All 
the comfort he could get now must be from Moses 
and Elias. But they did not satisfy his curiosity. 
Here was Elijah translated without death, and here 
was Moses, concerning whom there was at least the 
same mysterious probability, and the natural sub- 
ject of conversation, in Peter's view, would be the 
state of the dead. Surely now his inquiring in- 



232 ^ BILLE- GLASS LESS OK 

terest will be rewarded. There was every provo- 
cation to these speciilative questions. But no ! 
When Moses and Elijah came they had something- 
better to talk abont ; and we have no record that 
any of the disciples made any inquiries concerning 
these mysteries. The simple story of the cross was 
the all-absorbing theme. " The decease which he 
should accomplish at Jerusalem'.' was the subject 

of their sweet converse. Mr. S , will you tell 

us what is meant by his " decease?" 

S . His death. 

Teacher. Yes ; literally and more fully, his exo- 
dus, or exit. Now let us note here more particu 
larly, the meeting together of the old and new 
dispensations, in this Avhole exhibition. Here we 
have Peter suggesting that three tabernacles should 
be erected. Here was the appearance of the She- 
chinah, and the presence of the Saviour. Here was 
the conversation about the Saviour's decease, or 
literally exodus, and Peter seems to have caught 
the word from this spot, and afterwards applies it 
to his own decease (2 Peter 1. 15). And here we 
have all the old appearances, the pillar of cloud, 
and the fire, and the presence of God in Christ, so 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESSOI^. 233 

that wlien Peter begins to speak, his very first 
suggestion is that they should build tabernacles as 
in the exodus of God's ancient people. So that it 
may well be believed that the whole scene was 
meant to be a vivid picture to the minds of the 
gazing disciples of the absolute oneness of the old 
dispensation with the new. 

i? W . Shall I ask a question? May 

we learn, and is it a fitting ' lesson just here, in 
relation to the conversation of the two heavenly 
visitants, that the subject most interesting to Chris- 
tians when they meet, should be Christ, and that 
this subject should fill and engage them more than 
anything else ? 

Teacher, Most certainly. It is the one subject of 
a prayer-meeting ; the only one in a union prayer- 
meeting. It is the one that binds saints on earth 
and in heaven together. It is the one theme, 
Christ. 

How much, Mr. L , did Moses and Elias 

understand about "the decease which he should 
accomplish at Jerusalem?" How much did the 
Old Testament saints understand of the New Testa- 
ment theology ? 



234 ^ BIBLE- CLASS LESS OK 



I suppose tliey recognized the Messiah 



in the types and shadows which set him forth. 

Teacher, Somebody saw the day of Christ afar 
off. Who was it ? 

Scholar, Abraham. 

Teacher, Yes, and in the promise made to his 
seed. He saw the day of Christ in the person of 
his own son Isaac, who was a type of Christ The 
foot of the cross was planted, not only on the hill, 
but on the very spot, where the ram was found 
caught by the horns in the thicket at the time 
when Abraham was saved the sacrifice of Isaac. 
And it may be that the ancient Israelites, in every 
part of their worship, saw Christ as distinctly as 
we see him, and understood as much as was neces- 
sary for them to understand of the atonement, to 
be saved. Surely we have it revealed to us that 
those who are in glory still retain an interest in, 
and cognizance of, all that transpires in the prog- 
ress of Christ's kingdom on the earth. The de- 
cease which Christ should accomplish at Jerusalem 
was the link between the old and the new dispen- 
sations. Moses and Elias doubtless knew as much 
as Peter and James and John did. 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESSOI^. 235 

P . Did not their knowledge cover his entire 

work and life on the earth ? 

Teacher, Yes. No doubt they took an interest 
in the whole plan and work of redemption, in all 
its progress and accomplishment. Let me call you 
specially to observe one remarkable illustration 
afforded in this narrative. Moses was introduced 
to us as one of the feeblest of human kind — in an 
ark of bulrushes upon the water — a lost child — a 
little city mission child, if you have a mind to call 
it so — a w^aif, thrown out upon the current of the 
world with nothino; but absolute neoiect and ruin 
before it. Just at this juncture God's providence 
interferes to rescue him. He lives. Forty years 
after you find him acting his part in Egypt. Forty 
years thereafter you find him at the head of the 
children of Israel. Forty years after that on Mount 
Nebo, going into that mysterious form of death to 
which he was led by the Spirit. Then he disap- 
pears. Fifteen hundred years pass slowly by, and 
this same child, and leader, reappears in glory, still 
speaking, still knowing ! How the thought of im- 
mortality dawns with new light upon us ! There 
rises before the mind a picture of what immortality 



236 ^ BIBLE-CLASS LESSON, 

means. We see him as we trace the steps in hig 
wonderful life, and we begin to understand what it 
means to save a cliilcl. We reflect upon the years 
of instruction that have passed over his head since 
the day he Avas rescued from the ark of bulrushes, 
until we now behold him on the mount of glory, 
and feel that it is the same immortal spirit, going 
from one degree of knowledge and of glory to an- 
other ! Is it not well for us, in teaching little chil- 
dren, to imagine oftener than we do, some Tabor- 
top of transfiguration of that soul, redeemed and 
coming by and by to meet us, a glorified spirit, a 
companion of Moses and Elias, and of the once 
crucified but now risen and exalted Christ, reign- 
ing with him for evermore ? 

Scholar, Do you not suppose that Moses and Elias 
received instruction after they got to heaven, on all 
that belongs to Christ's kingdom and work ? 

Teacher, I have no doubt they received instruc- 
tion, agreeing to all the intelligence of heaven. If 
you mean to ask whether they might have re- 
(ieived the entire knowledge of it there, whether it 
could have been communicated as first information 
there, and afterwards increased, I have no doubt 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESS ox 2oT 

of that either. AVe are told that Moses spoke of 
Christ. That Moses understood the plan of the 
atonement, and saw it in the sacrifices, and in all 
the system he gave to the people, I make no doubt. 
That Jacob saAV Christ when he had the vision at 
Bethel, I make no doubt. For hereafter, said our 
Saviour ye shall see angels ascending and descend- 
ing upon the Son of man — making a fair parallel 
between the two scenes. The Old Testament saints 
were made, through visions and dreams, to see the 
day of Christ afar off. And perhaps it was not a 
new communication of information to them in 
heaven, but a constant growing into the intelli- 
gence and knowledge of God's plans and the 
scheme of redemption. 

Scholar. Do you think that Bishop Whately is 
correct in saying that the Old Testament saints did 
not think that the Messiah would be more than a 
man ; that he would not be God ? 

Teacher, I do not know the connection of his 
remark, nor the point of history of which he is 
speaking; whether at the period and state of ig- 
norance, or intelligence, which the Jewish nation 
exhibited. At the time of Christ the state of the 



238 A BIBLE-CLASS LESSON, . 

Jewish religion was deplorably low; tliey held 
views and customs entirely at variance with the 
prophecies of their own Scripture. In the days of 
the glory of the Israelites, I believe that they 
understood fully what the Messiah would be, and 
that the remark quoted would not apply. 

Scholar, The writer is speaking of the accusation 
made against Christ of using blasphemy in claim- 
ing to be Grod. He says in this place that the Old 
Testament writers had not had the idea that Mes- 
siah was God. 

Teacher, David certainly had, when in his psalms 
he called him Lord. And some of the descriptions 
of Christ in the prophecies leave us in no doubt on 
that point. 

Scholar. Do you think that Moses and Elias, 
when they appeared, had as clear an idea of the 
death that Christ was to accomplish, as we have 
now ? 

Teacher, Yes. I think they knew much more 
than we, and that any man learns in the first hour 
after death more than in all his life previous, about 
that and all the points of our religion. Even as 
the glory of the Old Testament dispensation has 



A BIBLE-CLASS LESSON. , 239 

passed away, and is exceeded by this glory that 
remaineth. Progress is the law in Christ's earthly 
and heavenly kingdom. 

Scholar. Is not the truth of recognition of friends 
in heaven tanght in this lesson ? 

Teacher, It is, most plainly. It is one of the 
most comforting and glorious lessons to be derived 
from this whole passage. The recognition must 
have been instinctive almost. It may hav^ been 
that our Saviour told Peter and James and John 
who Moses and Elias were ; at any rate, they did 
know them, and none of the masters in speculation 
can rob the scene of this, its crowning lesson of 
comfort to believers. [The teacher here animad- 
verted strongly upon Eaphael's inaccurate repre- 
sentation of the facts of the Transfiguration Scene.] 

Teacher, We must proceed. The narrative says : 
^^But Peter and they that were with him were 
heavy with sleep, and when they were awake they 
saw his glory." The lesson we would find here is 
the extreme misfortune of being dull and heavy in 
the prayer-meeting. They lost a good deal by it. 
They did not see Moses and Elias come. They did 
not go up so explicitly to pray as Christ did. 



240 • A BIBLE- CLASS LESS OK 

Were you never in a forest in summer, and as you 
reclined at the foot of the trees, you were almost 
shut out from the air of heaven, while looking up 
you could see the wind breathing over the tops of 
the trees, shaking the foliage, and making the twigs 
tremble, and you wished that you were only high 
enough, that you might get the breath that was 
stirring overhead ? Just so, have you never gone 
away from a prayer-meeting feeling that you had 
been down in the valley, feeling troubled and de- 
spondent, and that if you could only have risen 
higher you might have had joy and peace and 
breathed the air of heaven ? The way to reach this 
enjoyment is to start higher. Prepare for tlie hour 
of prayer. Get yourself on the high ground^ of ex- 
pectation and desire. Like our Saviour and his dis- 
ciples, go up into the mountain to pray. Get as 
high as you can above the din and turmoil of life, 
and there you will have sweet communion with the 
Master. 

''And it came to pass, as they departed from 
him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for 

us to be here ; and let us make three tabernacles," 
&c. We have already spoken of the tabernacles 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESS OK 241 

and of the whole scene as suggesting Jewish history. 

''Not knowing v/hat he said," &c., — the narra- 
tive proceeds. That is, Peter was thrown into 
confusion i>y the surpassing splendor and unex- 
pected glory of the vision. Have we not known 
men similarly affected in times of revival, who are 
dull and heavy while God is manifesting his glory 
by his Spirit, and who wake up sometimes in 
astonishment, if they wake up at all, from the 
slumber with which they greeted the work at its 
be2!:innin2: amons: them ? 

''While he thus spake there came a cloud and 
overshadowed them ; and they feared as they en- 
tered into the cloud. And there came a voice out 
of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son : hear 
him." "Thus," as Dr. Huntington beautifully puts 
it, in one of his sermons, " as one enters into the 
deep dark providences of God he is frightened ; but 
when once entered in he discovers the form of the 
glorified Christ. On entering only is he troubled." 

A good thought, but not in this verse. The text 

ft 

here means that only Moses, Elias and Christ en- 
tered into the cloud. Peter and James and John 
did not enter in. The first " they" refers to the 

11 



242 ^ BIBLE- GLASS LESSON. 

disciples, who feared when " they," the others, en- 
tered into the cloud. The voice testifying to 
Christ's glory, came to them as they were without 
the cloud. Peter dwells on that in- his second 
epistle, first chapter, 17th and 18th verses, where 
he refers to the voice he heard in the Mount. 

" And when the voice was past, Jesus was found 
alone." Mark puts it very finely: *' Suddenly, 
when they had looked round about they saw no 
man any more save Jesus only with themselves." 
Jesus only ! This is the motto of every true spirit- 
ual life. Jesus only ! If we had been there would 
this have been our thought? I am confident, 
rather, that some of us would have been ques- 
tioning Moses about the burning bush, or his mys- 
terious sepulture, or the plagues of Egypt and the 
exodus, with the passage of the Eed Sea, and 
many other things ; but the one thing for the dis- 
ciples to see was Jesus and Jesus only ! 

^'And they kept it close, and told no man in 
those days any of those things which they had 
seen" — by express command, doubtless, of our Sav- 
iour. Those around about them were not able to 
bear such extraordinary truths ; they were too ad- 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESSON. 243 

Yanced for tliem, and Jesus must take his disciples 
with him to communicate them, even to them, 
lest also they should not receive them. But what 
a bond of union between these three men must this 
God-committed secret have been ! How they would 
talk to each other about it in the days that succeed- 
ed, before his resurrection ! What proof they would 
have in their, own heart of the greatness and the 
glory of their Divine Master ! I pity with all my 
heart those Christians whom I sometimes meet, 
who, when called upon to give testimony for Christ, 
are forced to speak of their innermost, tenderest, 
closest feelings in regard to Christ. It seems to me 
that almost every Christian has some Tabor- top 
experience that he cannot talk about till after the 
resurrection. 

Scholar. And now what would you say was the 
chief lesson of all this passage? 

Teacher. I have no doubt that the design of the 
whole scene was to show the disciples in that pecu- 
liar posture of their minds to which they had come 
at the very moment of his humiliation, that the. 
Saviour was glorified and Divine ; to show them 
that even in the immediate prospect of the cruci- 



244 ^ BIBLE-CLASS LESS OK 

fixion our Saviour was tlie chosen of tlie Father, 
the well-beloved of God, It was necessary that 
some extraordinary demonstration, to confirm their 
faith, should be made, especially to those who v/ere 
to be prominent in the establishment of the chtirch. 
And I am accustomed to look upon the transfigu- 
ration scene very much in the light of the record 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews : after the covenant 
of redemption in Christ the Son was made with 
God the Father, and after he had said, '^Lo, I come, 
in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do 
thy will, O God!"— after that early arrangement 
with the Son and the Father, through which the 
redemption of the w^orld was committed by the 
Father to the Son, then Jesus, as the Son, came 
forth from the bosom of the Father ; and g-oins^ to 
the earth, as he passed through the ranks of the 
angels on his way through the gates of pearl (if I 
may make the scene so graphic as that) as he passed 
out of heaven, and when the shining throngs began 
to understand that the Prince of the Kingdom was 
going down to be crucified upon this wandering, 
rebellious planet — at that very moment, lest there 
should come to them even one derogatory thought 



A BIBLE- CLASS lesso:n'. 245 

concerning him, the order goes forth from the 
highest throne, ''Let 9.II the angels of God worship 
him !" And just so to the disciples. When the 
full doctrine of the crucifixion burst upon Peter's 
mind he said, "Let it not be so, Lord." It was 
necessary then, that at that point, a splendid dem- 
onstration of the obedience and devotion of the 
Lord Jesus Christ should be made. These I con- 
ceive to be the main purposes of the transfigura- 
tion. 

Rev, Mr. T . How will you manage, with 

such a view, the 16th verse of the first chapter of 
2d Peter, "For we have not followed cunningly 
devised fables when we made known unto you the 
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but 
were eye-witnesses of his majesty," and then the 
other fact that the transfiguration occurs immedi- 
ately after the promise of the Saviour in the three 
Gospels, of his coming. 

Teacher, Are you certain that they refer to his 
second coming ? We will not enter upon this now. 
I think we hold the truth together, but we have 
not the time to develop it. 

R. W- . Can we not get something home 



246 -^ BIBLE-CLASS LESSON, 

close to our own experience, riglit liere? Here 
were tliree who were soon to go forth to a baptism 
of great suffering. They were now getting views 
of the preciousness of the Eedeemer such as they 
had never had before. When we enter into suffer- 
ing at the command of Christ, shall we not also 
receive from him sweet comfort and consolation to 
strengthen us, and are not these views of him given 
to us to enable us to pass through the coming sor- 
rows he has appointed us unto ? 

Teacher, Truly, this is the design. I think that 
God never gives us the full manifestation of his 
Spirit but he would strengthen us for some trial, 
or build us up against some attack, or prepare us 
against a coming disappointment. In sunshine he 

makes us ready for the storm. Brother W , 

my heart is very full of practical illustrations that 
might elucidate and apply this precious portion of 
the word, especially to younger scholars. But I 
do not propose to instruct the instructors before 
me. I see they do not need it. 

Scholar, What do you make the leading thought 
of the lesson ? 

Teacher. Besides that I have mentioned, I should 



A BIBLE- CLASS LESS OK 247 

make the following; leading; tlioiis:lits : the doctrine 
of the resurrection of the dead, the recognition of 
friends, and the interest in heaven in regard to 
things on the earth, and the revelation of a future 
state in so far as this may be considered a reve- 
lation. 




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